Tudor and Cashel Township council passed their donation policy at their meeting on May 2. The policy was enacted to provide direction to staff and council and to establish and maintain an orderly procedure for organizations and groups applying for donations from Tudor and Cashel. After the policy was passed, decisions on donations will hereafter be made during the township’s annual budget process. The new policy takes effect immediately.
Mayor Dave Hederson introduced the donation policy, bylaw 2023-23, that had been introduced at the April council meeting, revised and brought back to the May meeting, and invited discussion on it. The township saw a need to update this policy due to donation requests recently from the Back the Cat capital campaign (to bring a CT scanner to the North Hastings Hospital) for $10,000 and the Hastings County Physician Recruitment and Retention Initiative, which had asked municipalities like Tudor and Cashel for $25,000 ($5,000 per year over five years) to help recruit and retain physicians in this area.
The purpose of the donation policy is for Tudor and Cashel to recognize the contributions of, and demonstrate the township’s commitment to working with various groups and organizations that provide programs, service and events that benefit the community, while acknowledging financial constraints that may limit the township’s ability to help out these groups and organizations’ efforts, either through monetary or in-kind donations. It also puts into place open and transparent procedures for staff to follow in order to approve or deny these funding requests, which will be made during the township’s annual budget process. While the township currently has $21,000 in the 2023 budget for donations as a placeholder, this policy will help delineate where these funds and further funding will go towards donations in the years ahead.
Through discussion among the council members, three additional revisions were suggested and implemented in advance of the donation policy’s passage. These were; under section 5.11 of the policy which stated “The applicant should be prepared to attend a scheduled council meeting to address their donation request,” which was changed to “at the request of council.” Under section 6.3, which states “Late or incomplete applications for donations will not be eligible for council consideration,” the word “late” was stricken from the verbiage and just the word “incomplete” was used. For the third change, a new clause was inserted, 6.7, which was arrived at by council with assistance from their CBO Scott Richardson. It reads “The remainder of budgeted funds, outside of the application period, may still be considered at the discretion of council.” The full donation policy can be found on the Tudor and Cashel Township website (www.tudorandcashel.com)
With these amendments in place, Hederson called for a vote, and council agreed to pass the donation policy, bylaw 2023-23, which came into effect immediately.
By Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on May 13, 2023 at 17:33
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