A special reserve account has been created by Terrace city council to hold $4.63 million sent to it this spring by the provincial government.
None of the money has been spent yet and how it might be spent will come into focus when the city prepares its 2024 budget.
The money comes from the $1 billion sent to local governments around the province by the province in March. It can be used to provide everything from water and sewer works to roads to waste management to housing to improvements designed to encourage walking, running, cycling and other active transportation.
Establishing a reserve account to be called the Growing Communities Reserve Fund to hold the money and then to report how it is spent was a requirement laid out by the province.
Spending reports are required each year until the account is exhausted.
A local governmen can add to the reserve account but it cannot move money out of it and place it elsewhere.
Each local government received a flat amount of $500,000 which then increased based on population growth between 2016 and 2021.
The province has also indicated the money received won’t affect applications for grants for other provincial programs.
In many ways, the bylaw requirement to report how the money is being spent is similar to the condition laid down by the province when it provided $14.728 million to the city in 2019 and 2020, part of $150 million distributed to local governments from Prince George to Haida Gwaii.
That money is now being used for projects the city could not otherwise afford to carry out and to plug budget holes in projects brought on by unforeseen costs and the post-COVID inflationary surge.