With less than two weeks to go before the start of the new fiscal year, the provincial government has yet to decide how much money the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research will have to spend.

"We are working closely with the B.C. government on our funding for the next fiscal year and expect to have confirmation soon," said a spokesperson for the foundation, which was named after the Vancouver-based 1993 Nobel prize winner in chemistry.

"We're still in discussion and we should be able to confirm more in the next couple weeks," health ministry spokesperson Ryan Jabs said in an email.

The ministry will look at the money that is left in its 2011-2012 budget as the fiscal year comes to a March 31 close and will "weigh a number of competing requests with the dollars for grants that we have available," Jabs said.

Funding the MSFHR is a priority and the foundation has been given $275 million in core funding over the past 10 years, he said. "We remain in close discussions with them about their priorities and their ongoing funding needs as we do this review," he said. "We will continue to be very transparent with them about this process and let them know about their grant as soon as we make the decision."

While the foundation has received blocks of funding to cover several years at a time in the past, in recent years funding has been provided one year at a time. Last year the BC government provided $20 million for one year of the foundation's operations.

Last year the foundation registered its interim president and CEO Bruce Clayman and board member Don Avison to lobby "various public office holders to seek annualized funding to support the activities of the Foundation."

Annualized funding would give the foundation a predictable amount of money each year, allowing it to plan ahead and giving researchers and staff more security, Clayman told The Tyee in October, 2011.

Earlier this year the foundation hired diabetes researcher Diane Finegood as president and CEO.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.