Bonnyville Council received a budget update from the Bonnyville and District Family and Community Support Services (FCSS).
The presentation kicked off the Nov. 12 regular council meeting in Bonnyville.
The FCSS Advisory Board reviewed the budget, and a motion was passed at the Oct. 2024 advisory board meeting recommending approval of the preliminary budget.
FCSS conditional funding is a partnership between the Municipal District (MD) of Bonnyville, the Town of Bonnyville and the Government of Alberta.
“Here is all our of revnues in addition to the provincial funding, we get $52,832 from other operating. That is other programs that we run under community services. That would be administrative costs that come to FCSS for administering the other contracts,” said presenter Rhonda Miron, director of community services.
The MD’s portion of the funding is based on the population of wards 1, 2, 3 and 4. The total revenue the group has is $687,120. The expenditures are also $687,120 with the largest portion of the money spent being on labour. FCSS spent $484,430 on labour which includes wages and benefits.
Other expenses for the group include training, admin, program costs and a small amount of grants given to other agencies.
Operations throughout the year were also broken down. There were a total of 623 volunteer hours which includes meals on wheels, volunteering for clothing exchange and practicum students.
There were 380 clients who accessed the clothing exchange, 512 community volunteer income tax program participants, 130 newcomer’s welcome week participants with the vast majority being new to the community, and 49 home support clients. Since Nov. 2022, there have been 750 direct client hours for the home support program since its inception. In men’s mental health there was 119 participants.
Spoke offers parents and caregivers capacity building services that help families become more resilient strong and health. Data range for Soke went from April to Sept. 2024. There were 86 unique clients, 64 referrals to HUB, 94 baby group attendees, 15 adhd coffee chat attendees and five you’re a great dad attendees.
Some upcoming FCSS intiatives in 2025 include, acts of random kindness, family connection night, rural mental health events and building community connections
In 2025, a social needs assessment will be conducted to inform and shape future FCSS programming.
“The FCSS provincially is changing their framework and how they want us to model our programming, one of the mandates coming down is they want us to prove that there is need for the programs we’re doing. One of the ways for us to do that effectively is to have a needs assessment,” said Miron. “We didn’t have staff last year, so we had a surplus, we’re taking some of the surplus dollars and we’re going to fund a needs assessment for the town and our part of the MD.”
Read more: Town of Bonnyville approves housing grant
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