Many non-profit groups in the city could find themselves paying substantially more for property taxes and utility bills this year.

The city is proposing a 12-per-cent cut to its community service grants.

That money provides non-profits with a grant toward their property tax and city utility bills.

The proposal emerged at Monday evening's city council meeting.

Members are scheduled to vote on whether to move ahead with the plan at its meeting this Monday night.

Valerie Anderson, the city's manager of financial services, told council the operating budget for this year capped the community service grants at $140,000.

That's almost $20,000 less than what the grant requests came in at.

"The recommendation is to reduce all grant allocations by 12 per cent in order to stay within budget constraints; however, this will financially affect each of the applicants,” she noted in her report to council.

The Humane Society Yukon has seen its beleaguered financial situation made public over the last year. It's among those groups which benefit from the grant directed at its property tax and utility bills.

The 12-per-cent cut would take its grant down from $5,873.12 to $5,168.35, means the society would find itself with a bill of $704.77 owed to the city.

Group president Hoby Irwin, who was among those elected to a completely new board following the controversy last year, said this morning he hasn't yet had a chance to look into the matter and couldn't yet comment on its impact on the society.

Other groups will see similar bills for the 12-per-cent difference ranging from as small as $42 for the Downtown Urban Gardeners Association to as large as $3,183.37 for the MacBride Museum Society.

Groups were sent a letter last year, informing them changes may happen to the grant this year though just what the impact would be was unknown at that time, Anderson told council.'

She made the remark after Coun. Kirk Cameron wondered whether city staff have a sense of how difficult the situation would be for organizations. He later asked that staff get in touch with affected groups about it.

Last year, staff had proposed a 15-per-cent reduction to the grants.'

However, the previous council (which included current councillors Cameron, Dave Stockdale and Betty Irwin) voted to go into city reserves to meet the budget while also letting them know things could change in 2013 via the letter that was sent out.

At the time, then-councillor Ranj Pillai argued many groups count on the full grant. He said it wouldn't be appropriate to tell them at the last minute they wouldn't be getting that funding.

There was only applicant not recommended for a grant this year.

Nlaye Ndasadaye Day Care's application, stated Anderson's report ". . . does not meet the eligibility criteria of ‘primarily concerned with providing services to the needy members of the community' as identified in council's Community Service Grant Policy.'”

There are also others – including the humane and gardeners society and the museums – which don't meet the current criteria set out in the policy, but have been grandfathered in from past years.