Criminal background checks and driver abstracts for volunteers working the Stars and Thunder festival will now be covered by the festival budget.
At Monday's meeting at city hall, Councillor Rick Dubeau asked what the exact cost estimates are.
"Are we still looking at $3,500 bucks? Is that what we're looking at?" he said, basing those numbers on the estimated 350 volunteers, at $10 bucks a pop.
Mayor Steve Black replied that he's not sure exactly how many volunteers will be required at this point.
"I don't know if we'll hit the 350 volunteer mark that require these checks. Some volunteers do, depending on what they're doing, handling dollars, driving, things like that. Some will require driver abstracts, some will require just the criminal background checks, but it should be roughly in that ballpark," said Black.
Council approved the move unanimously.
After the meeting, Mayor Steve Black said the Timmins Police Services Board voted against covering them, citing lost revenues, and time consumption of TPS staff to perform all of the checks. Volunteers were then expected to pony up the bucks.
"Councillor Dubeau saw it as a very important thing to have the right number of volunteers required, and didn't want to see volunteers walk away because of those fees. So he brought it to the council table to consider adding it to the festival budget, which council supported tonight," he said.
Stars and Thunder gets underway on June 24.
