By Breanne Massey
Times Staff
Over $300,000 in Columbia Basin Trust cash came back to grace the Greater Trail region in 2011-12, according to the recent basin-wide annual report.
In its Annual Report and Report to Residents, the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) noted that it gave back $302,071.86 to the entire Greater Trail region through its Community Initiatives Program, including $102,132 to Trail alone.
That money was part of a record $18.2 million in direct funding benefits returned to Columbia Basin communities in 2011-12, said CBT president and chief executive officer Neil Muth, up from $11.2 million in 2009-10.
“From a personal perspective, I was proud that we maintained our core programming and added to a number of new initiatives that communities have been telling us are important,” explained Muth.
Some of those initiatives included the Columbia River Treaty workshops and several youth initiatives, with Fruitvale the first Greater Trail group up and running. Muth said Trail and Warfield would also be included in that category in the coming year.
The CBT Community Initiatives Program funds activities the communities deem important, supporting projects that might not otherwise have been undertaken.
The villages of Fruitvale, Montrose and Warfield all received $30,000 for the current year—including some previous years’ un-allocated amounts—with Area A and Area B also being handed $30,000.
Rossland received $44,770, with $1,490 in unallocated money, and the Beaver Valley picked up $90,000, with $2,249.86 from previous years added in.
The program is funded by the CBT and is administered by the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) for the Greater Trail area.
Confirmation of the funding is subject to final approval by the board of directors of the RDKB
In Trail total requests for CBT money from 45 community groups and non-profit organizations for the 2012/13 year was $285,269.
The annual report and the report to residents detail CBT’s financial investments, the organization’s spending habits and initiative activities through a reader friendly glimpse of trends throughout the Basin.
The CBT had a deficit of $1.4 million, partially due to making more funding available to deliver benefits in the Basin, and partially due to a decrease in total revenues, which were about $22.9 million in 2011-12, down from $29.5 million in 2010-11.
• CBT’s Annual Report is available as a PDF at: www.cbt.org/uploads/pdf/CBT_R2R_2012_web_FINAL.pdf.
• CBT’s Report to Residents is available as a PDF at: www.cbt.org/uploads/pdf/CBT_R2R_2012_web_FINAL.pdf.
• A two-minute video that highlights recent CBT-supported projects and initiatives can be viewed at: www.cbt.org/r2rvideo.
• Report to Residents is being distributed Basin-wide or can be found at any CBT office