Owen Sound Council has not approved the Downtown Improvement Area budget.
Council instead tabled the document on Monday and issued an invitation to the Chair of the DIA board of management to attend the next council meeting on April 18th.
Council wants the DIA Chair to explain the budget, specifically a particular line.
While the DIA’s mandate is to market and beautify the downtown — it has budgeted only 63 thousand dollars for that purpose this year.
But it has forecast costs of 174 thousand dollars for administration, which accounts for 68 per cent of the total budget.
The DIA board approved the budget on February 22nd and that decision was endorsed at the organization’s annual general meeting on March 8th.
Councillor Ian Boddy moved that the budget be tabled, calling the administration figure “outrageous” and not reasonable.
He also pointed out that only about five per cent of the organization’s membership attended the AGM and endorsed the budget.
Boddy says that was not sufficiently representative.
Council agreed with Boddy and issued the invitation to the chair of the DIA board.
Mayor Deb Haswell believes Council’s decision will come as a surprise to the DIA but she sees no harm in asking the Chair to appear before council to explain the budget.
Haswell says council isn’t trying to tell the DIA what to do, but it’s committed to looking at the bottom line of every organization with which the city is involved.
