Trail Daily Times, July 12, 2012

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THURSDAY

S I N C E

1 8 9 5

Orioles sink Stars

JULY 12, 2012 Vol. 117, Issue 134

110

$

Page 9

INCLUDING H.S.T.

PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF

ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALM SALMO

IN HOT PURSUIT

Province doles out cash to communities BY TIMOTHY SCHAFER Times Staff

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The province handed out the second sack of presents to Kootenay communities in its Strategic Community Investment Fund (SCIF), an unconditional grant payment the province makes from its general revenues to municipalities across the province. With a total of over $1.9 million coming to the Greater Trail area—and $5 million to the West Kootenay—the SCIF includes the traffic fine revenue sharing program and small community and regional district grants. Each community uses the cash injection to help flesh out its budget, but the devil in the details varies with each municipality. Montrose was allotted $316,457 in small community grants, dropping the cash into general revenue to offset staff wages (they don’t collect taxes specifically for wages), council expenses, benefits programs, legal costs, running the village office, public relations, elections and general public works. “We are doing more capital projects this year and we couldn’t do them without this,” said village chief administrative officer Kevin Chartres. “There’s no question it impacts capital projects because that is what you would cut if you didn’t have the money.” Trail took home the most provincial money of any West Kootenay community as it received a small community grant of $380,774, collecting $108,168 in traffic fine revenue. The traffic fine revenue sharing program funding helps offset the cost of policing and community safety, with Trail using its allotment for the city to employ two extra Crime Reduction Unit RCMP officers to provide a “higher level of service.” The grants come from ticket fines and courtimposed fines on violation tickets, and the amount of money a municipality receives is based on its contribution to total municipal policing costs. Only communities that pay for policing—Trail, Nelson and Castlegar—received the traffic fine revenue. City corporate administrator for Trail, Michelle McIsaac, said they do not know how much is collected locally for traffic fines, instead, they receive an apportionment of the total provincial revenue, based on the amount the city pays for policing. Warfield took home $357,923 in grants and Fruitvale was $363,857 in grants. Rossland gathered up $379,178 in small community grants. The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary also received cash, with $161,564 in grants.

TIMOTHY SCHAFER PHOTO

Jacob Canzian out fakes Sugar on Gyro Park beach on Tuesday as he throws around the frisbee with Andy Kandberg. The warm weather drew out hundreds of people to the park to bask in the sunshine and partake in the cooling waters, but Sugar was more interested in the flying disk (which she never managed to capture).

Interior Health adds voice recognition technology BY TIMOTHY SCHAFER Times Staff

Everyone needs to be heard. New voice technology being installed at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital this month will insure patients’ voices are heard when dealing with their doctors. Called voice recognition, new software installed by Interior Health translates spoken words into text for

reports, and will result in both cost savings and quicker report turnaround times. “This technology will allow Interior Health to meet the demand for transcription services, while taking advantage of technology that will result in improved turnaround time for vital patient care information,” said Interior Health board chair Norman Embree in a release. Voice recognition technol-

ogy allows patient information to be available at different points of care quicker and more efficiently. “If a complicated trauma patient was seen and initially resuscitated at Kootenay Boundary Hospital, and then transferred to one of our tertiary care trauma centres, voice recognition would enable the original emergency department physician’s initial critical care summary to be available

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to the accepting trauma doctor much more quickly,” said Dr. Michael Ertel, medical director for emergency services and critical care transport advisor for Interior Health. The technology will become important in cases when time is narrow and multiple care providers are involved, said Interior Health chief information officer Mal Griffin, such as in the case of trauma patients or those who are critically ill.

Contact the Times: Phone: 250-368-8551 Fax: 250-368-8550 Newsroom: 250-364-1242


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