County debates $150K in grants to community-based organizations

Division between north and south emerges

Gunnison County got into the holiday spirit on Tuesday, November 23, doling out grants to 44 area Community Based Organizations (CBOs), even if the county commissioners themselves couldn’t agree on who should get the biggest present.

The Gunnison Board of County Commissioners has the job of deciding how to divide up $150,000 in funding, just $5,000 less than they gave out to nearly as many groups last year.
As the discussion at the work session went on, a division among the commissioners emerged over the equity in funding going to either end of the Gunnison Valley.
As the discussion about the Crested Butte Nordic Council’s request for $12,000 came up, commissioner Paula Swenson noted that the non-profit is showing a $10,000 budget surplus. “They’re operating pretty much like a business,” she said, “and that’s just what we like to see when we’re trying to wean some of these CBOs off county funding.”
The money the Crested Butte Nordic Council applied for, if granted, also would have made up less than 4 percent of the group’s total budget. But commissioner Jim Starr recommended a $5,000 grant, saying the Nordic Council needs $150,000 for a maintenance building and does a lot to bring people to the valley in an otherwise slow early winter season.
Commissioner Hap Channell said his priorities were with CBO applications benefiting health and welfare and economic development first, followed by those dedicated to the development of recreational and cultural resources.
“I don’t think that is as important, given the constraints on our budget, as health and welfare,” Channell said, adding that he thought there was “a symbiosis between the Nordic Council and CBMR” in the development of Nordic skiing in the valley. “I didn’t see that, which I thought was odd,” he said.
The current recommendation is that the Nordic Council be awarded $4,000; however, none of the grants are final until the commissioners vote on the final budget Deceber 21.
Starr made the point that the line between each of the requests, as they were laid out on a CBO budgeting worksheet, weren’t so clear. The Crested Butte Nordic Council, he argued, does as much at the north end of the valley for economic development as it does for recreation, although it is filed under the latter heading.
However, when the grant request from Cattlemen’s Days came up, Starr suggested $8,000, while Swenson and Channell recommended granting the event organizers $10,200 and $10,000, respectively.
“We’ve given them between $10,000 and $12,000 for the last three years. We gave them $10,200 last year,” Swenson said.
Channell added, “We can’t keep having this nickel and dime conversation—if we all feel that [Cattlemen’s Days] is an extremely important event, then we need to get our heads around how we as a community are going to fund it. And I don’t get to first base with them on that.”
Then Starr suggested the county match the contribution the City of Gunnison makes to the event, which is $7,500. “You’re going the wrong way, Jim,” Swenson said.
As Swenson and Starr found themselves consistently on opposite ends on the range of funding for many of the CBO requests, the commissioners compared the county’s contribution to the Gunnison Chamber of Commerce and the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber. Each got $5,000 last year.
This year, the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce requested $12,000 and the Gunnison Chamber asked for $10,000. But the recommendations of Swenson and Channell were just the opposite, with recommendations of $10,000 for the Gunnison Chamber of Commerce and $8,000 for the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber.
Channell felt like the Crested Butte Chamber could afford a little less county funding because of the Business and Occupational Licensing Tax (BOLT) that generates revenues for the Chamber at the north end of the valley and Swenson agreed.
Swenson suggested that the commissioners revisit the funding of each Chamber of Commerce at the end of the discussion.
Starr again found himself on the opposite side of the aisle when pushing the others to contribute something to Gunnison Parks and Recreation for help with improvements to the ice rink. Starr said the rink is “important to the economic viability of the tourism industry at both ends of the valley.” Swenson and Channell recommended granting zero.
“Let’s come back to that one,” Swenson suggested again.
After another of the more contentious applications was put aside that way, Starr tried to stop the delays saying, “Then we’ll spend all of our money and there won’t be anything left when we come back.”
“We’re looking past facilities in the north end of the valley and we’re having a hard time coming up with $10,000 or $15,000 to help them,” Starr said. “I’m looking for a little more parity between the north end and south end.”
Swenson and Channell said they felt they were justified in the recommendations they’d made.
One of the ways the county is trying to spread out the funding and provide equity among the groups is by capping the incoming grant requests at $12,500; only occasionally has any organization gotten as much as it asked for.
Even the Office for Resource Efficiency, which has a close relationship with the county, got $500 less than the $12,500 it requested.
Of the 48 groups that applied for funds from the county, 20 asked for more than $10,000. One large request came from the Crested Butte South Property Owners Association, which asked for the maximum amount but got turned down completely because they opted out of bus service from the Rural Transportation Authority, which the county had said it could help fund.
Last year, Habitat for Humanity got all of the $10,000 they applied for; this year they got nothing. That was the only request under the Health and Welfare heading that was denied. Otherwise the county recommended funding nearly 60 percent of the total amount requested for those organizations.
By comparison, the commissioners recommended granting only 35 percent of the groups and organizations filed under the Economic Development heading and recommended funding less than 30 percent considered to contribute to Culture and Recreation.
After being denied funding for the past two years, the Crested Butte Music Festival didn’t apply for funding this year. Neither did the “Crested Butte Chamber Fireworks.”
The Crested Butte Wildflower Festival was another point of separation among the board members as Starr suggested a grant of $2,500, which was more than five times the amount suggested by the other two. The commissioners recommended that the Wildflower Festival get $1,000.
As the recommendations stands, the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum will get $2,500 of the $3,000 it asked for and the Crested Butte Parks and Recreation Department will get $4,600 of the $12,000 it asked for to help with the Big Mine ice arena?.
The recommendations will not become final until the commissioners vote on December 21. Once the CBO awards are final, they will be available for public viewing on the county’s website, www.gunnisoncounty.org/finance