Langley charities are getting less money than they expected, as provincial gaming grants are rolled out, and they are disappointed with the change.

On Tuesday, Langley MLA Mary Polak and Fort Langley-Aldergrove MLA Rich Coleman announced $727,440 is being distributed to a long list of local non-profit groups.

However, many are seeing less money than in past years, and much less than they had hoped for.

The Langley Seniors Resource Centre received $97,500 in the most recent round, the bulk of $130,000 they will receive from gaming this year.

But that’s down from about $160,000 in gaming money the society received in 2009, said director of programs Barb Stack.

“It definitely has had an impact,” Stack said. “We’re not sure what we’re going to be doing at this point.”

The reduced grant comes in the wake of an $86,000 cut made by Fraser Health to the centre last year.

The society’s board is meeting this week to discuss how to deal with the shortfall.

Another group seeing less money than last year is the Langley Hospice Society, which offers aid to the terminally ill and their families.

“I actually anticipated it being reduced,” said Sandra Castle, the society’s executive director.

Last year the society received $115,000 in gaming grants, but this year it will get just $100,000. A cap at that level will cover most charities receiving gaming money, Castle said.

“We make up the difference through our thrift store, at least we hope to do so,” Castle said.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Langley expects to go down from about $145,000 in grants last year to $122,000 this year, said executive director Mary Reeves.

“We are still hopeful that we can pick up up somewhere else, but having said that, everyone else is cutting back,” Reeves said.

At the Canadian Museum of Flight at Langley Regional Airport, museum manager Terry Brunner was disappointed with their $18,000 grant. This year, the museum had asked for $80,000.

The money was intended to fund school programs. When the museum has requested funding in recent years, it has typically received between $30,000 and $35,000, Brunner said.

“We didn’t build it into the budget,” Brunner said. Because grants are uncertain, the museum treats them as a bonus when it receives one.

“Basically, it takes away from the kids, is what it does,” he said.

Even those asking for small grants were not necessarily happy with the amount they received.

The B.C. Farm Machinery and Agriculture Museum applied for $3,300 to pay half the cost of some electrical work. Instead, they received $1,665, said museum president Grace Muller.

“I’m disappointed. We didn’t ask for a lot,” Muller said.

She compared the grant to 2008, when the museum asked for $9,900 for a roofing project and received $9,000. In 2007, the society received $38,000 for a variety of renovations, again close to what they had requested.

Muller doesn’t know why they are now getting just half what they had asked for.

Not every group is getting drastically less. The Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association is apparently getting a bit more this quarter from gaming grants, but may get a little less from other government sources.

There have been changes to the grants program this year, said Coleman, whose ministry includes gaming.

“We have more applicants for grants than we ever have in the past,” Coleman said, pointing to the recent recession as an underlying cause.

In addition to spreading the money more thinly, Coleman said, gaming grants have been re-prioritized, with sports teams being largely excluded this year in favour of social and youth service groups.

Targeted money handed out by bingo halls has been largely eliminated. Bingo is fading as a portion of gaming revenues, Coleman said, and in recent years, the bingo grants had been subsidized by other forms of gambling.

That needed to stop, Coleman said, to make the system fair.

The grants are calculated annually, based on the needs of the groups asking for money, Coleman said.

“Some people think the grant’s an entitlement,” he said.

However, in some cases, if there is money left over from the previous year, or if the group can find money through other forms of grants or from donors, less gaming money will be given.

“I think actually the Langley groups did pretty well,” Coleman said.

A total of $120 million in gambling money will be handed out in grants around B.C. this year, up by about $9 million from last year’s grants, but down from a pre-recession high of $154 million.