During last week’s budget meeting, the Fort Frances council approved a grant for the Meals on Wheels program valued at $11,000 to be used until June 2021.
This grant will be paid on two instalments, $5,500 each.
Last year, the Meals on Wheels program received $16,500 in grants from the town of Fort Frances, and $4,743 as a grant from the Moffat Family Fund. In addition, the total money received from meal recipients is $17,767.50. For a period of eight months ending on Aug. 31, 2020, Meals on Wheels had $39,010.50 to spend.
The expenses from January 2020 to August 2020 totalled $32,665.51.
This accounts for $16,612.50 in payments to Riverside for recipient meals, $13, 791.50 for coordinator wages, $1,165 for mileage, $16 for bank charges, $361.60 in utilities and $719.91 in source reductions. This left a surplus of $6,343.99.
Doug Brown, chief administrative officer, said this surplus was used from August 2020 until the end of December.
The future projected expenses are $11,000 for the coordinator wages, $20 for bank charges, $750 in source reductions, $300 for mileage and $280 in office expenses. Therefore, the projected deficit is $1,350. The current budget is only planned until June 30, 2021 as the coordinator, Gaby Hanzuk, is retiring and the future of the program is uncertain.
With the future of the program being unknown, some council members said it would be more appropriate to cut the funding in half, just like they did in 2020.
Mayor June Caul said the reason she is not in favour of providing funding the way they have in the past is because she has seen that other towns such as Emo are able to do it for a cheaper price. She suggested the grant be $5,500.
“Meals on Wheels in handled differently in Emo, it’s different from the way we do it,” Caul said. “I believe the participant pays around $7 a day for his meal. I’m sure it could be done here as well.”
However, Coun. Andrew Hallikas, said this year should be an exception because of COVID-19 challenges.
“My personal thought is that this is a very difficult year coming up with COVID,” Hallikas said. “Many of the recipients of meals on wheels are people who really need the assistance that they get. I would be in favour of as [Dawn Galsha] budgeted, putting the entire 11,000 into it. I wouldn’t like to see him cut to Meals on Wheels at this time.”
The meals are paid for by the recipients and delivered by volunteers from the community, five days per week for 52 weeks in the year. According to the letter submitted to council, the coordinating of the volunteers, processing applications, preparing delivery routes, collection of funds for meals, meeting with health officials and families and other duties require a paid coordinator along with a few overhead costs.
