The referendum to upgrade the pool at the Rec Centre in Quesnel came in well under budget.
The final numbers were released at Tuesday night’s North Cariboo Joint Planning Committee meeting in Quesnel.
Gerald Pinchbeck, the Manager of Communications with the Cariboo Regional District, says the budget was for 50 thousand dollars.
“Half of that was for the actual administration of the election for referendum staff, for the ballots and for the facilities, and the other half was for the public education and engagement side of things to promote voter turnout in the election.”
Pinchbeck says they ended up spending only just over half of that amount.
“In the end we spent less than 10 thousand dollars on the administration of the referendum on costs for staffing, meals, accommodation, advertising and facility rentals. We ended up spending just under 17 thousand dollars on the public engagement side of things, so on staffing costs, newspaper ads, radio ads, social media ads, open houses, and the printing and mailing costs for the mailer that we distributed.”
Pinchbeck says there were significant contingencies built into this budget.
“For example our public engagement budget had a 5 thousand dollar contingency in the event that we felt escalation was necessary to build awareness, get engagement, and drive voter turnout, but overall we ended up achieving our goal, which was to increase voter turnout by a significant amount. Voter turnout ended up increasing by about 5 to 6 percent over the 2021 referendum.”
Pinchbeck says they ended up spending just $26,267.25 of the 50 thousand.
“The extra money remains unspent. What’s going to happen with it is it’s going to stay inside the North Cariboo Recreation and Parks Budget as a surplus. And at the end of the year, depending on how the final budget turns out, that feeds into the overall end result.”
Voters rejected the idea of borrowing up to 35 million dollars to upgrade the pool with just 1,085 in favour and 1,664 opposed.
Despite that, Pinchbeck says some upgrades will still be done.
“So with the referendum results being a very firm ‘no’, the Joint Committee has discussed at a very high level what the scope of work is for the minimum required upgrades to the facility. During the referendum we did talk quite a bit about the fact that there was a significant upgrade being proposed with the 35 million dollars budget, and that was rejected. And the alternative really being a much more reduced scope that focuses only on the bare minimum upgrades to keep the facility running at its current level of service.”
Pinchbeck says they will be working towards defining what that is in the current budget cycle.
