Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:27:29 -0400
From: Karen Crowell
Subject: for the record
Michael Kirkman wrote “Chatham Chatlist #4663It amazes me how conservatives always sidestep the issues by throwing out figures to me that I do not believe. I would become a believer if Ms. Karen could provide me proof of the following statements she made (especially the first one).”
Michael, let me assure you that I am not the person who so inaccurately portrayed the status of Chatham County at the time the current majority on the Board of Commissioners took office. “Chathammatters” lifted it from the “platform” of those who ran for office. As you can see, they had no serious issues to argue, so they relied on unsubstantiated claims that the politicians in office weren’t competent.
Like you said, conservatives always sidestep the issues.
The looming crisis of rising unemployment due to the cuts in spending recently proposed by the Republicans in the General Assembly significantly overshadows any fictitious financial crisis that Chathammatters absurdly claims existed when the current BOC majority took office.
By extending sales taxes to apply to essential goods and services, Republicans will make sure that the cost of living goes up for ALL of us, especially those who already make considerably less money to start with. If you live on a fixed income, sorry, it will cover even fewer expenses. As for the soon-to-be- unemployed, they will experience an even more drastic drop in their standard of living, because their wages and benefits will simply disappear, their unemployment benefits will be significantly reduced, and the goods and services they rely on will cost even more.
Donna Kelly disputes my concern about the defunding of non-profits. She asserts that ” it’s clear from the record that this was part of a process started under the previous board to shift non-profit funding away from administration costs and toward direct service delivery.”
According to her, “the purpose of non-profit funding has always been to leverage county resources through non-profits to provide additional services to county residents.It was not the intent for agencies to become dependent on the county for administrative funding.However, by 2010 about 60% of county funding was being used for administration rather than direct service delivery.”
According to Commissioner Bock, “the whole reason to fund non-profits is to leverage services that the County would normally be doing, but the non-profits are saving the County money.”
How much money are they saving the County? In a report provided to the BOC in December 2010, it was stated that “last year, Chatham County-funded nonprofits leveraged 71,237 volunteer hours, equivalent to 34 full-time employees and $1.4 million in salaries. Chatham County provided $392,005 in funds to nonprofits, which leveraged $1,119,792 in other funds — almost a 3-fold return on our investment!”
It’s wonderful that there are so many people who can afford to donate their time as volunteers. They save the County a significant amount of money by allowing the County to rely on their efforts instead of paying state employees to provide their services. But things have changed since then. Donna tells us that “this year there were requests for over $400,000 and about $230,000 to allocate, so you can see the challenge.”
Donna suggests that agencies are probably “using other funds for administrative costs and are asking the county for funds for direct service programs.” So if the requests for funding have increased to $400,000, and a higher proportion of that is now supposed to be going toward direct services, why has the total allocation shrunk by $165,000?
A policy of gradual reduction in the percentage of funding that goes toward nonprofits’ administrative costs should result in a higher PROPORTION of funding going towards direct services, not a dramatic reduction in TOTAL funding.
Donna explains that we have to take into account “special one time appropriations and the shift of funding for the two agencies moved to the regular budget” in order to interpret this reduction of funding for non-profits as a policy of “funding that has remained steady over the last several years.”
Well, my so-called fear of massive cuts is not unfounded. What happened to that 3-fold return on our investment in nonprofits? We have essentially crippled the goose that laid the golden egg.
Donna wants to know where I came up with the figures for the proposed reduction in funding. They’re not in the budget or the BOC minutes, but they can be found in a presentation on the County’s website, http://www.chathamnc.org/Index.aspx?page=681 under the announcement that “Nonprofit Grant Applications for FY 13-14 are Now Open” where it says *Click here *to view the presentation about the grant process made to agencies on January 25, 2013.”
Also, be sure to read the part about the Stress Reduction Kit at the end. It says it all.
Karen*