The chair of Summer In The City has asked Steinbach city council for direction for the future in view of some financial challenges. Graham Pollock presented an update to councillors at a committee meeting Tuesday evening. He says the festival's annual budget is $320,000 dollars which grows to $438,000 if you include gifts-in-kind. Pollock adds they ran a deficit of $15,000 last year.

"That $15,000 deficit I talked about is largely found in the sponsorship money that is down. We were down last year in sponsorship by roughly $15,000. It's difficult, but hopefully we can continue on. Our model is always to grow and be better than we were last year, but that comes at a cost though."

The city covers the festival's losses. Pollock notes the city this year upped its grant for the festival to $65,000 from $50,000 and they are grateful, although it was the first increase in ten years. At the same time the festival will not get a $15,000 thousand dollar Heritage Canada grant this year. Pollock explains, unbeknownst to the festival committee, Heritage Canada moved up a deadline for the grant application and they missed it. He says the city may have to consider a further increase in funding.

"If we want to continue to grow and we want to continue to have Summer In The City at the level it is now, and I happen to think that it's a pretty good weekend, then we have to start looking at how we are going to fund this."

He notes the festival draws 25-30,000 people to Steinbach every year and it would be well worth the investment. But Pollock says that will be up to city council.

"It you want it to continue to grow, then yes, we have to start looking at the numbers and maybe there has to be another increase in city support."