Arts leaders stood before Coquitlam city council last week — with cap in hand — to ask for more money for their organizations.
And, this week, council will deliberate their requests as it prepares the next municipal budget, which is due to go for three readings at the Dec. 7 meeting with final approval scheduled Dec. 14.
Last Tuesday, council heard from officials from the Coquitlam Public Library, Place des Arts, Place Maillardville, Coquitlam Heritage Society and the Evergreen Cultural Centre — all of which receive capital and operating funds from the city.
Cultural managers cited how much their organizations have grown over the past year; however, with growth comes pressures for more staff and programming and the need to replace parts of their aging buildings, they said.
Coquitlam Public Library, which marks its 40th year next year, seeks a contractual wage increase of $36,100 plus $50,000 in new funding to build on its collection (eBooks, database and resources), for a total budget request of $4.8 million next year.
Place des Arts’ executive director Joan McCauley said her non-profit is also bursting at the seams — with registration up 23% since 2009 — and it wants to hire another accountant (as recommended by an auditor) and to bring on a new computer system to handle the registration load
McCauley told council it hopes to have ActiveNet in place by the spring (ActiveNet is a leading recreation management software that’s currently being used in the city of Port Coquitlam).
The 44-year-old Maillardville arts and music hub is asking for $63,689 more to be added to its budget request of $925,642 — about 40% of its bottom line for 2016.
Luke Balson, executive director for Place Maillardville, also took note of the success of its 42 after-school programs, of which 59 kids are the wait list at five schools. It saw an 18% increase with 628 children registered this year — one-third of them admitted at no cost.
Like Place des Arts, Place Maillardville is asking for more staff — costing the city $21,416 a year — plus another $5,000 to hire a consultant to design a marketing and communications strategy for better outreach. Its base budget for 2016 (not including new requests) is $404,362.
Coquitlam Heritage’s Reg Wilford, which runs the 106-year-old Mackin House next to Place des Arts, said his society plans to update its brand, host a heritage symposium — at a cost of $13,906 to the city — and develop a vision for a heritage space next year.
His organization’s base budget for 2016 is $230,601.
As for the Evergreen Cultural Centre, which has a base budget of $759,467, it wants a $63,000 lift to replace its rehearsal hall floor ($23,000) and update the studio theatre sound system ($40,000) — both of which are 19 years old.
It also continues to seek expansion of the centre, especially with the terminus of the Evergreen Line outside its doors; the rapid transit is due to open next fall.
[email protected]
twitter@jwarrenTC
