City dissolves community improvement committee in bid for ‘efficiency’

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City council is folding its arm’s-length community improvement committee, just two years after it was created to co-ordinate initiatives meant to address the root causes of crime and social inequity in Regina.

In a special meeting called Wednesday, council voted 9-0 in favour of dissolving Community and Social Impact Regina (CSIR) and returning its work back in-house to city administration.

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CSIR was formed as a municipal corporation to lead work on furthering the objectives in the city’s Community Safety & Well-Being Plan, which was adopted in 2022. The plan was meant to tackle root causes of crime amid criticism of an ever-growing police budget.

It became operational in 2023, with a mandate to autonomously “create, facilitate and monitor co-ordinated community and social impact strategies to support the well-being, health, safety, and social inclusion of residents in Regina and region” on behalf of the city.

Mayor Chad Bachynski said the idea is to take a more “consolidated, cohesive approach to tackling this important work” moving forward.

“The intention is to improve efficiencies, remove layers of bureaucracy, layers of oversight in the way we operate,” he said Wednesday.

“I think our city staff are set up for success in overseeing that plan, are very familiar with it because they were such a crucial part of creating it and are well-positioned to take an even stronger leadership role,” said Coun. Shanon Zachidniak (Ward 8), who was one of the original board members.

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Zachidniak and Coun. Victoria Flores (Ward 6) are now the only two remaining members of CSIR’s 10-person board of directors, as the remainder of members submitted a joint resignation upon hearing of the dissolution motion.

“My understanding is that they felt there was nothing they could add to that process and the city could handle that work on its own,” Zachidniak said.

Part of the $1.6-million budget allocated to CSIR for 2025 will be used to cover the administrative costs of dissolution, which is to be finished by June 30. CSIR had at least five employees, including executive director Cheryl McCallum, with total salary expenditures of $500,000 in 2024.

Council’s questions Wednesday focused on what will happen to the leftover funds and whether they should remain earmarked for community safety plan initiatives, but no decisions were made.

City staff will return in the fall with a report outlining the final expenditures associated with closing up shop and plans for the programs and initiatives CSIR will be handing over to the city.

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“I think that will outline a lot of the questions council has asked, about what we are continuing to do and not do and what are the funding sources,” said Ly Pham, chief of staff to the city manager.

CSIR is the second arm’s-length city entity to be added back to administration’s purview in recent months. Tourism Regina was returned to the city by Regina Exhibition Association Limited in late 2023.

During its short-lived tenure, CSIR’s helped create the Regina Street Team in partnership with the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District and the Comeback Society. The street team serves as a non-emergent support service for residents in the downtown and core neighbourhoods, handing out food, water, safe consumption products and more. CSIR provided $800,000 in funding to RDBID for the project in 2024.

CSIR was also involved in creating a City of Regina Indigenous ceremony space and funding eight planned sweat ceremonies in 2024. It also provided oversight of initiatives stemming from Regina’s $2.9-million allocation of the federal anti-gang Building Safer Communities Fund.

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