Representatives of the Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division (CCS) responded to the criticisms and pleas of veteran volunteers at Eagles Hall Wednesday, March 27 with expressions of sympathy, but remained unyielding in their decision to close the Ladysmith CCS office.
Much to the chagrin of local members, Ladysmith’s CCS office marked the 75th anniversary of the society last Friday by opening its doors to the public for the last time. The office is now closed.
Senior staffers Peter Kingston, CCS’s divisional-vice president of operations, and Kathy Ilott, the society’s regional director for Vancouver Island, met with Ladysmith residents at Eagles Hall to discuss the impending closure.
Following a presentation on CCS funding initiatives and programs, volunteers and donors disenchanted with the planned closure aired their grievances to Kingston and Ilott and suggested means of keeping the office open.
When asked to reiterate the society’s motives for closing the local unit office, Kingston said the decision stemmed from “a number of cost-cutting steps that we were faced with taking this year.”
“We believe that when we were looking at the budget for the next fiscal year, which we have now started, we needed to trim some costs in order to continue to deliver services,” he said. “The economic environment and the revenue projections showed us that if we didn’t reduce some costs, we wouldn’t be able to deliver service. So we had to take some very tough choices.”
CCS administrators looked at cutting “optional costs” like marketing, communications, travel and training, Kingston added — a process which led to the closure of both the regional office in Whitehorse, Yukon and unit offices in Ladysmith and Parksville-Qualicum.
“In addition, because we’re trying to make sure we go into the fiscal year with a balanced budget, we did have to reduce our total payroll cost,” Kingston said, “and we have reduced the equivalent of 12 full-time positions. I know you’re looking at [the cost of operating the Ladysmith office] in isolation. This is, in your minds, a small cost — the $5,000 rent cost plus the cost of us administering the unit — but for us, it’s a whole package of cost-cutting of which this is one element.
“We know that the community is going to be disappointed. We understand that.”
The crowd drew very little comfort from Kingston’s explanation, and some questioned why salaries for CCS senior staffers hadn’t been reduced.
“That wasn’t a strategy,” Kingston said. “Our belief is that with fewer people being asked to do the same amount of work, that would not be the optimum choice. But that was a choice that was debated and discussed.”
Kingston expressed hope that the community would continue to support the Canadian Cancer Society following the closure of the unit office. In response, members of the audience informed Kingston and Ilott that the closure, combined with a lack of discussion between administrators and unit volunteers in the months prior to its announcement, had left donors and volunteers feeling snubbed, with one audience member condemning them for having “kicked the paper boy.”
Audience members subsequently pledged to discontinue their volunteer and financial support for the CCS.
In closing, Kingston committed to reporting the “depth and the extent of the feelings” expressed by those in attendance to the senior management team at CCS, but he confirmed that the office would be closing and that no extension would be granted.
Comparing CCS T3010 filings for 2011 and 2012 — representing fiscal years 2010 and 2011 — reveals increases in revenue, management and administration costs, and compensation for employees, but a substantial portion of the 2011 budget — $6.9 million — reflects funding for one specific project, Kingston said.
“This is money given for a specific campaign to be used to construct a new lodge in Prince George,” Kingston commented by phone on March 21. “It’s really not part of the equation when we start to look at what’s available to cover our normal operations in unit offices. That campaign is really, totally separate from what we’re looking at on Vancouver Island.”
A standard, external audit of CCS finances for 2012 is currently underway, Kingston added, and a T3010 won’t be filed with the Canada Revenue Agency for 2012 until late April at the earliest.
Until that time, Kingston said he “wouldn’t want to speculate, in advance of completing that external audit procedure, as to what the end results are going to be.”
The closure of the Ladysmith office was part of a series of cuts that are “future looking,” Kingston said, and “part of a much bigger equation. We’re trying to make sure that we first of all cut any administration or overhead costs to do with bricks and mortar rather than cutting the delivery of our actual mission service to the communities. That’s why you see these cuts in unit offices on Vancouver Island and in the Yukon.”
CCS programming is made possible through the assistance of some 17,000 volunteers division-wide, Kingston said.
“We are concerned and saddened that some of the volunteers in Ladysmith appear to choose not to continue to work with us,” Kingston added. “We’d like their involvement.”
Sue Carlson, a CCS “volunteer and paid contractor for many years,” is stepping in to co-ordinate the door-to-door campaign in Ladysmith, Ilott said. Carlson can be reached by e-mail at midislandd2d@bc.cancer.ca, or by phone at the CCS Nanaimo unit office (250-741-8180).
