Efforts will be made next week to ensure a North Otago junior netball club is not left out of pocket, after council workers ''lost'' the club's application for Sparc (sport and recreation) funding.
The Mackenzie District Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss how it might still be able to grant the Twizel Junior Netball Club the $2400 it would have received in Sparc funding for the 2013 season.
However, council chief executive Wayne Barnett said the council must also decide where those funds would come from, because the council's grants budget had been fully allocated for 2013-14. Mr Barnett said the club, which played in the North Otago Netball Centre's junior competition, contacted the council at the end of May after a club representative noted there had not been a response to its funding application.
''We have no reason to doubt that the application was submitted and accept that there has been an error in council process that resulted in the application being lost,'' Mr Barnett said. A ''retrospective'' assessment determined the netball club would ''most likely'' have received a $2400 grant, had its application been lodged.
He said an additional allocation of grant money could be made, but it would reduce the amount of discretionary grant funding available for the next financial year. An additional grant would probably not mean an overspend in the council's grants budget, because a number of grants had yet to be taken up.
''It is likely that the account will still be in funds at the end of the year.''
The netball club faced ''significant financial hardship'' if it did not receive the grant, he said.
The Twizel Junior Netball Club declined to comment.
