Saturday, November 1, 2014

[Marin County] Supervisors hand out $100,000 from controversial pet project fund


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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