UPDATED VERSION
BIBLE HILL, N.S
The Scotia Pool Society is feeling the pinch in a municipal funding crunch.
An unanticipated 50-per-cent reduction in funding has resulted in a $43,000 deficit in the pool’s operating budget, chairwoman Glenda Bower says.
For several years, the municipality has provided the society with an annual grant of $100,000 for operating expenses.
Last year, however, Bower said she was told the municipality preferred to pay for capital upgrades or repairs as opposed to paying for operating expenses.
A request for $50,000 in operating funding and $50,000 for capital expenses was submitted.
“So, we restructured things to take money out of our capital to put all of our fundraising monies into our operating,” Bower said.
In setting its annual budget, however, the county approved the request for the operating funds but declined the capital funding.
“So now my current operating budget is sitting at a $43,000 deficit,” Bower said. “And that is not a final budget. It’s pretty mean and lean.”
The Scotia Pool society leases the facility from the provincial government; its current lease is place until Dec. 31, 2035.
A condition is the province can take back the facility at any time simply by providing 60-days notice. And it is that condition, Mayor Christine Blair said, that prompted council to reject the capital funding request.
Bower said the 60-day notice is a standard condition with all provincial leases and she has been given assurances the only way it would be enforced is if the society was not maintaining the facility.
Prior to 2015 the province was responsible for all capital and maintenance costs at the site but that’s no longer the case.
“We’ve put $750,000 into the interior and part of the roof in the past three years. So, we have to protect our investment,” she said.
“All these systems we put in have had the benefit of upgrading us, modernizing us and reducing our costs.
Bower has since written to Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell in an attempt to have the clause removed but is still awaiting a response.
Investments in the facility’s operating systems have helped cut costs, including a reduction in heating expenses alone, from $130,000 in 2016/17 to $47,000 for last year, she said. But the society recognizes that will not always be the case, Bower added.
Since 1999, the municipality has contributed $1.5 million to Scotia Pool’s operations.
And while the society is grateful for those funds, what is especially frustrating, Bower said, is after all the improvements that have been made – through private contributions and fundraising activities – there are only four projects remaining to bring the facility up to par. They include completion of new roofing, which is currently underway, exterior brick and window replacements and sand filters for the pool.
“I guess I would have liked to have seen our situation taken into account, the amount of work that we have done. We’re at the last gunshot,” she said.
“Everything else we’ve done, we’ve completed. I think that’s something that got lost in the shuffle too.”
What also seems to have been lost on council, Bower said, is the degree of community support for the pool, especially for seniors.
The mayor has long been an avid supporter of Scotia Pool and she, along with councillors Eric Boutlier, Wade Parker and Karen MacKenzie, supported the capital funding request.
“The facility is very important to the community at large,” said Blair. “Of course, when council makes a decision and you have a majority vote, that is the direction that council has to follow.”
The cost to repair the remaining section of roof is $24,800, while quotations for the brick work came in between $43,000 and $65,000. The sand filters are estimated to cost between $30,000 and $40,000.
The society has not yet received a quote on the windows, which have to be custom made.
Story updated to correct information in repair quotations.
