County divvies up funding for community organizations

“Us giving money to us”

In a new approach to funding Community Based Organizations (CBOs), the Board of County Commissioners identified $80,000 in potential contracts for services at a work session on August 9. The commissioners made quick work of a list of 96 organizations, most of which had received CBO grant money in the past, clarifying the types of CBOs to be funded by the county. What remains to be determined now is what to do with the rest of the available budget. 

While no final numbers have been determined or officially approved, funding for organizations like the Chambers of Commerce visitor centers and Safe Ride in Crested Butte and Gunnison will remain intact. But it looks like some grants, like funding for the Rotary Club’s fireworks in Gunnison, will not make the cut because they were municipality-based services or the county has not funded them equally across the valley.
In general, the commissioners followed principles outlined in previous work sessions, suggesting that contracts for services should provide services the county would otherwise have to provide, or services that primarily benefit the entire county. Anthony Poponi, executive director of the Coal Creek Watershed Coalition, questioned the idea that municipality-based organizations don’t have county-wide implications.
Commissioner Hap Channell agreed, saying, “Municipality-based organizations do have county-wide implications, and that could be said about a lot of organizations. But I as a commissioner have to look at the predominant service—is it county-wide or municipality-wide? …In economic times that are challenging you have to look at details in different ways.”
One way he has come to view things differently, Channell said, is that the portion of the county sales tax redirected to the municipalities is in a sense one large donation to municipality-based organizations funded by the towns.
The commissioners also selected organizations funded by both the county and health and human services, like Restorative Justice and the Mental Health Center, for further discussion to fully understand the degree to which they rely on county funds and whether they should be funded from multiple county sources. Roughly $15,000 to $20,000 for the whitewater park, the Gunnison Valley Observatory and the Ohio City Community Building—which don’t always request money but receive regular maintenance from the county—was selected for transfer to the public works budget.
“Last year we had $150,000 total to fund all of these organizations,” commissioner Paula Swenson said. “With contracts for services and what we want to move into appropriate departments, we’re already at $100,000, so there’s $50,000 left if we continue to fund as we did last year.”
The question then became how to best allocate that $50,000. Noting the duplication of efforts between the county and organizations like the Gunnison Valley Community Foundation, Channell wondered if it would be possible to use a third-party granting organization to streamline the granting process. But commissioner Swenson had a different idea, citing the growing prominence of arts and cultural events in the Gunnison Valley as worthy of county support.
“I think we can do much better than divvying up $500 here and $1,000 there and to pool our money. This came out of our economic development summit this year, about promoting our community… I would rather see money funding the grander picture of promoting ourselves as a place where people want to come for culture and the arts.”
Swenson’s idea initially sparked discussion on how that would differ from the Tourism Association, or what benefit there would be in reserving funds for recommendations that come out of the Economic Development working group.  
“The devil is in the details. Economic development to do what? Pay an executive director like we used to?” Channell asked.
Then commissioner Phil Chamberland brought up the idea of a budget to support unplanned county services for cultural and recreational events like Ride the Rockies and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge.
“These races have brought in and will bring in thousands,” Chamberland said.
“That I could buy into because that’s us giving money to us, to our departments to do what we consider an economic development function. But it’s not turning it over to an economic development group. We’ve been there and done that,” Channell said.
“A set-aside,” Swenson added. “It could be we have more races coming through and we’d have a pot of money for that. Maybe the Art Alliance comes through with a promotional idea, or college kids doing a marketing study to better align regulatory efforts, [or] a website to support Gunnison County as a whole… to assist in an economic development summit next year.”
The idea took hold, but commissioners agreed that more discussion would be required and will continue at a future work session.