British Columbia Search and Rescue Association
910 Government Street, Suite 101, Victoria, BC V8W 1X3
Tel: 250.405.3500 Fax: 250.405.3505
May 7, 2008
To: Training Officers
BCSARA SAR Groups
From: BCSARA Finance Committee
RE: 2008/2009 First Aid Funding Initiative
For the past few years BCSARA has used a portion of its grant monies to fund first aid training for volunteers. Our goal was for every SAR responder in the field to have some level of first aid training and we asked the JIBC for assistance in administering the program. Our first budget was a trial figure and since then we have been using past year averages to set the funding limits. The JIBC staff set up a workable program and always came in within budget. They continue to offer this service to us and we appreciate their efforts.
This year the BCSARA Finance Committee felt that with a number of financial initiatives being considered, and with a new Training Committee working to organize our commitment with our training partners, we should attempt to have a more defined budget process so we know what our financial plans should be.
We asked the JIBC to amend our first aid roll out for the 2008/2009 fiscal year in the hope that, by soliciting expressions of interest from the SAR groups, we would be better able to create an overall BCSARA budget. A deadline was added, as was a “first come first serve” provision, all in the hopes of accomplishing our goal.
This attempt on our part has not accomplished our intent and we apologize to the SAR groups and the JIBC for any inconvenience caused by implementing this new process. What resulted were expressions of interest from more groups than had ever done so in any one year previously and as a result, within weeks, those expressions of interest had not only exceeded all previous year’s averages, but also the maximum budget. This is not going to work because we would need to deny groups’ first aid funding assistance before we even start training or the first bills come in.
The requirement to seek pre-approval is therefore retracted. First aid training can begin and requests for reimbursement made as per the JIBC letter. The BCSARA will monitor the expenditures as we have in past years.
