October
30, 2014
Marin
Independent Journal
By Nels Johnson
Blog note: This article refers to a grand jury report. See text highlighted in red below.
County supervisors scooped up
$100,000 from their controversial "community service" account this
week, providing grants to 35 pet projects favored by board members.
The first such grants of the
fiscal year were approved as proposed by the county administration. The staff
reviewed $232,000 in requests from applicants sponsored for funding
consideration by individual board members, whose funding suggestions totaled
$128,000.
"If your board approves
the staff recommended allocations ... $100,000 of the annual budget of $300,000
would be spent," County Administrator Matthew Hymel noted. "$200,000
would be available for the remaining two funding cycles."
Last fiscal year, the county
board broke its pledge to hold pet project spending to $300,000, and instead
allocated $329,000 to accommodate a long line of charities, civic programs and
community organizations seeking funds from the county treasury. The program is
supposed to cap grants at $10,000.
On Tuesday, a top grant of
$11,000 went for various projects of Lifehouse Inc. to help fix up four
residence homes for the developmentally disabled. Grants of $10,000 each went
to Search for the Cause's "Conscious Kitchen" program involving
student and community cooking classes in Marin City, and to the Trust for
Conservation Innovation's "WaterNow" project promoting graywater
reuse installations. Grants of $5,000 each went to the West Marin Chamber of
Commerce; Reset Go's workshops for underserved populations on substance abuse,
domestic violence and related ills, and to the Center for Volunteer and
Nonprofit Leadership. Community Action Marin's "Emerging Leaders"
project got $3,500.
Grants of $3,000 each went to
In Home Supportive Services, Warm Wishes, San Marin High School, Shoreline
Acres Preschool scholarships and KarmaSpirit's Novato athletic scholarship
program. Other grants of from $2,500 to $1,000 went to programs ranging from
Novato High's junior ROTC program, the Bioneers Scholarship Fund and Marin
Senior Coordinating Council, to the Galilee Harbor Community Association, the
League for Excellence in Academics at Drake and Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian
Church.
Board members contend the
program, criticized as currying political patronage by the civil grand jury and
assailed as a "slush fund" by others, remains a vital lifeline for
worthy civic endeavors. Supervisor Steve Kinsey cheered the account, calling it
a "program well worthwhile" that provides seed money to a diverse
range of projects. "The value of this program is substantial" even
though "we will continue to be criticized" about it, he said.
Supervisor Katie Rice, who last
year said she was working with the administration on further reform of the
fund, on Tuesday indicated she has hedged her effort, saying she is glad that a
"broader range" of grant applicants has come forward. "I've got
my reservations about the way the program is set up," she added, indicating
she was willing to monitor the program for another year.
Seeking to hush controversy
over the account, supervisors gave the program a facelift last year, and in a
bid to shift the focus from themselves, tossed it to the county administrator
while continuing to control the purse strings.
Although a key recommendation
from a grand jury probe involved removing control of disbursements from
supervisors entirely, the new program requires that grants be sponsored by a
supervisor — and that "geographic equity" be a goal to ensure that
each supervisor gets a fair share of the funds.
This time around, supervisors
Kinsey and Kate Sears recommended funding projects costing a total of about
$30,000 each, while Rice checked in at $25,500, Judy Arnold at $21,000 and
Susan Adams at $15,000. Hymel's staff slashed requests made by individual
agencies, and trimmed totals recommended by supervisors. "We had to make a
lot of hard choices," Hymel said.
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