SEQUIM — There’s tension in the air as two scenarios head toward a collision in the Sequim City Council chambers.
The city faces a gaping revenue shortfall as it plans the 2010 budget: At last forecast, an $850,000 difference between income and expenses.
And local human-services agencies, from the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula to the Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Clinic, are hoping for continued city support as they cope with their own financial struggles.
They’ve received city funding in past years.
The Boys & Girls Club received $100,000 for its teen programs in both 2007 and 2008; that was trimmed to $60,000 this year.
The free clinic, meantime, has long been among the nonprofits to win a share of Sequim’s $50,000 allocation for the community’s poor and infirm.
Adjusted criteria
At their Monday night meeting, the council members didn’t tackle the questions of how much to give whom.
Instead, they adjusted the criteria for agencies seeking support — and bickered a bit about who vets the applications.
The council voted unanimously to add “vulnerable populations including youth and seniors” to the criteria for agencies receiving city grant funds.
Grant-making clause
The members also changed the clause that limited grant-making to no more than five agencies to say instead that grants in 2010 will be no less than $5,000 per agency.
This alteration is “to make the contributions meaningful,” City Attorney Craig Ritchie said.
For years the United Way of Clallam County has made recommendations to the Sequim council on which organizations to fund.
The Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Clinic, Healthy Families of Clallam County and the Peninsula Community Mental Health Center are among those who have received contributions from Sequim’s coffers. And for its administrative services to the city, the United Way added a $1,000 fee.
Questions choice
Council member Erik Erichsen questioned the council’s choice of the United Way and asked if there have been non-United Way agencies — those “not part of the club” — that have lost out on funding.
“Is there something about the United Way you don’t like?” asked council member Paul McHugh. “What’s the reason for all this angst?”
“I don’t have to answer that question, thank you,” Erichsen said.
Council member Walt Schubert, an ardent supporter of the Boys & Girls Club, asked whether the criteria for the United Way recommendations would affect that organization.
He also wanted to know if the changes would impact a potential city contribution to the Sequim Senior Activity Center.
Ritchie replied that support of those nonprofits is entirely separate from the United Way-administered monies.
Those funds can only go to help the “poor and infirm” and not to organizations, Ritchie said.
The council, then, will have to decide whether and how much to support the Boys & Girls Club and the senior center through contracts for services, apart from the United Way’s recommendations.
Sequim’s budget forecasts and discussions will begin in earnest during October.
And whether the City Council will allocate funds in 2010 for the Boys & Girls Club or any other nonprofit is likely to remain an open question and the topic of much debate until the budget is adopted in December.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
