- Crisis Ministries, $23,000;
- American Red Cross, $15,250;
- Evening of Prayer Ministries (food services), $14,000;
- Pastors, Inc. (anti-drug program), $11,000;
- Lowcountry Senior Center, $9,000;
- Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, $8,000;
- Kecia E. Miller Foundation (free mammography screening), $7,000;
- Lowcountry Crisis Pregnancy Center, $7,000;
- SC Coalition for Black Voter Participation, $7,000;
- Youth Empowerment Services, $7,000;
- Lowcountry Food Bank, $6,750; YWCA of Greater Charleston, $5,500;
- Center for Women, $5,000;
- Boys and Girls Clubs of the Trident Area, $1,000;
- Center for Heirs Property Preservation, $1,000;
- Eastside Community Development Corp., $1,000;
- New Horizons, $1,000;
- North Charleston Community Interfaith Shelter, $1,000;
- Palmetto Project, (health care access), $1,000;
- Rein and Shine (equine assisted therapy), $1,000;
- St. James South Santee Senior and Community Center, $1,000;
- Vanderhorst Koinonia Ministries, (Road to Success Job Fair), $1,000
And those "in the middle"?
- Daniel Joseph Jenkins Institute for Children, $4,750;
- Dee Norton Lowcountry Children's Center, $4,000;
- Independent Transportation Network, $4,000;
- Trident Literacy Association, $4,000;
- My Sister's House, $3,750;
- Special Olympics, $3,500;
- Father to Father Project, $3,250;
- Lowcountry AIDS, $3,250;
- Carolina Youth Development Center, $3,000;
- Communities in Schools of the Charleston Area Inc., $3,000;
- Emancipation Proclamation Association Inc. (student scholarships), $3,000;
- Family Recovery Court, $3,000;
- Hospice of Charleston, $3,000;
- Metanoia Community Development Corp., $3,000;
- Project Read, $2,500;
- Bridge of Hope, $2,000;
- Charleston Area Senior Citizen Services, $2,000;
- Charleston County Children's Medical Homes Project, $2,000;
- Charleston Development Academy Charter School, $2,000;
- Clemson Extension Services, $2,000;
- Florence Crittenton Program, $2,000;
- Goodwill Development Center Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival, $2,000;
- Humanities Foundation, $2,000;
- Sustainability Institute (sustainable homes), $2,000;
- Cannon Street YMCA, $2,000.
According to the same article, the state attorney general has said, "As a general rule, outside agencies that get public dollars should serve a substantial segment of the community and the public purpose should involve a governmental function. That rules out projects that benefit a particular group or neighborhood. The attorney general also has cautioned that any contribution to a religious group for social services such as feeding programs must be on a contract basis."
Congratulations to the three Council members who refused to go along with this charade of giving tax dollars to nonprofits in exchange for support--Thurmond, Bostic, and Schweers.
No one questions that some of those on the list are quite deserving. Others are mysterious. Mainly, it's the method of delivery that's disturbing.
Posts
9 comments:
For anyone who missed the earlier threads, Bable's real name is Clelia Casey.
She teaches English at Bishop England High School.
(That's right, she doesn't even work for CCSD. She just criticizes those who do.)
Oh, Anonymous 7:37 PM, take a hike. No one cares except you but I really do like knowing that this exchange bothers you. What I find ironic is the asinine assumption that unless you are paid (off) by CCSD, you have no stake in its business. It's the other way around. We pay CCSD to do our business so we all have a huge stake in its success and an obligation to speak out when it fails.
Sounds like it would be wiser if there was a requirement that a contract exist between County Council and each of these groups anyway. Who's checking to see if they are performing as promised? CCSD does pretty much the same thing when it spreads the wealth around to law firms, PR professionals and organizations like the Chamber and NAACP. With or without a contract, someone needs to be making sure the public is getting what it's paying for and not just back scratching. How did Coleen Condon vote?
Okay, I've read this info. three times now. We get it. You think we care who Babbie is. I only care that she continues to speak the truth.
Get a life.
May the rest of us continue to focus on what really matters. Thanks, Babbie. Keep it up.
To the 8:01 poster: I think Condon was absent.
To anonymous at 7:37pm, Butzon, Meyers, whatever...this is not about somebody's biography...why does Babbie bother you so much? Why don't you "out" yourself on line? It looks like you never can drag yourself away from this blog...very telling...
Keep up the good work Babbie, you have "them" on the ropes and they are scared. Check to see how much County Council gave Nancy Cook at a special meeting last year. Ten grand is a lot of money to pay out in the middle of a fiscal year to a supposedly non profit that doesn't know how to balance the budget. Oh, and as much as I don't care for her, Condon did vote against this, which Cook thought was reprehensible.
Apparently no one in Charleston reads The State.
Spending on local projects shoots up
Proposed allocations more than twice amount in current budget despite grants program
By JOHN O’CONNOR
joconnor@thestate.com
A controversial legislative grants program has done little to reduce the number of water, sewer, park, local government and nonprofit projects proposed in next year’s state budget.
Local projects costing more than $26.1 million have been proposed in separate $7.3 billion budgets approved by the House and Senate. That is more than twice the amount of money for similar projects contained in the current year’s budget and more than nine times the amount in the 2005-06 budget.
Many of those allocations — $990,000 for a Greenwood sewer line; $800,000 for an abstinence-only education program; $800,000 for Anderson County parks — are the same type of awards given out since January 2006 through the $22.5 million competitive grants program.
Lawmakers said they created the competitive grants program in 2005, at the request of Gov. Mark Sanford, as a way to reduce the amount of money for local government and nonprofit projects contained in the state budget.
But the existence of the grants program has not stopped lawmakers from putting local and nonprofit projects in the state budget.
With $1.5 billion in new state revenues available to spend this year, lawmakers are choosing their own districts over statewide needs or tax cuts, critics say. Three members from each chamber soon will begin meeting to negotiate a final version of the state budget.
The responsibilities of state government have been a central question during budget debate. Many of the projects, supporters said, bring tourists, jobs or improve the quality of life. Critics say state government should not pay for local wants and dispute the benefits.
“To not be meeting our basic needs and then be paying for parties is not responsible government,” said Joshua Gross, executive director of the S.C. Club for Growth. The group advocates lower taxes and smaller government, saying that will spur economic development.
A number of local festivals are funded partially through competitive grants, Gross said, and those festivals have little lasting impact on the state.
“In my mind,” he said, “festivals are not legitimate economic development.”
After the Senate and House approved their proposed budgets, the S.C. Club for Growth released a “Lard List” of legislative pork that included museums in Lake City and Florence, as well as a pottery degree at Piedmont Technical College. Six festivals across the state that received money through the competitive grants program last year also were on the “Lard List.”
Sanford has been a critic of the budget as well, installing a “clock” outside his office to tabulate new Senate spending at $33 per second.
Senate Finance chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said the competitive grants program has reduced the amount of local money in the state budget, sometimes criticized as pork.
“It has gotten some of the political needs out of the state budget,” Leatherman said, noting no festivals are in the proposed budget for next year. “You don’t see those anymore.”
The grants program has been criticized for having few requirements, no objective criteria for judging applications and little follow-up on how the money has been spent.
After those criticisms, state Budget and Control Board executive director Henry White stopped issuing grants under $100,000. Since then, lawmakers have decided to re-evaluate the grant program’s rules. The grants committee also put all awards on hold until the rules are changed.
The Senate budget would change the program’s rules, capping all grants at $100,000 and requiring nonprofit groups to apply for money through a local government. The House removed the cap when the body voted not to accept the Senate budget.
“The program got shut down,” said House Ways and Means chairman Dan Cooper, R-Anderson. “I think that’s why you see so many back in there. There’s always a demand for those kinds of programs.”
A number of nonprofit groups, some with close ties to state lawmakers, could get money when next year’s state budget, which takes effect July 1, is finalized.
• Spartanburg’s planned Chapman Cultural Center is slated to get $500,000, in addition to $500,000 included in the current year’s budget. State Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, is a trustee of the arts group overseeing the project.
• Heritage Community Services, a Charleston-based abstinence-only sex education group, could get $800,000. Heritage Board member Cyndi Mosteller is the sister of state Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, according to the group’s most recent tax filings. The group previously applied twice for competitive grants but had not been awarded any.
• Locally, the budget includes $475,000 for Congaree Pointe, a 400-home development on Bluff Road spearheaded by Bible Way Church of Atlas Road’s community development arm. State Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, is the pastor of Bible Way.
The money will be used for erosion control while the land is readied for construction by a private builder.
“It is not untypical of the state to have projects like this that spur economic development,” Jackson said. “I am very, very proud of what we’re doing here.”
Bible Way has purchased more than $5 million in land and estimates the final investment — nearly all of it private — could total $30 million. When finished, Jackson said, homes, hotels, restaurants, doctors’ offices and other previously unavailable services will locate on Bluff Road.
“This is as important as some company from Massachusetts coming here and creating 25 jobs,” he said, “and we give them $3 million.”
As the Senate and House try to hammer out a final budget compromise, many of the local projects will be up for discussion.
Last year, money added into the state’s budget, after the state Board of Economic Advisers increased its estimate of state income in May, meant few projects were cut from the House or Senate budgets. Wednesday, the board added $240 million more for House and Senate negotiators.
Sanford has argued the state’s new income money could be used to cut income taxes, which would spur investment across the state.
Cooper said the House would push for its $81 million income tax cut, as well as the Senate’s $90 million reduction of the state grocery sales tax to 1 percent from 3 percent.
Paying for both tax cuts, Cooper and Leatherman said, will come at the expense of other items in the budget plans.
One item contained in both budgets is unlikely to be cut: an additional $9.3 million for the competitive grants program.
Gross said his group will be keeping an eye on what is cut — and what remains. The “Lard List” will return, he said.
“We’re hoping to have 10 items that we can go to the governor and say, ‘Veto this.’”
Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8358.
LEGISLATIVE SPENDING
The House and Senate proposed budgets contain $26 million in projects that are eligible to apply for competitive grants. Lawmakers created the competitive grants program as a way to get local government and nonprofit needs out of the state budget. The five largest requests are listed below:
1. Florence Museum, $3.9 million
2. Myrtle Beach Fixed Base Operator, $2 million
3. Boys and Girls Clubs, $1.3 million
4. Greenwood sewer extension line, $990,000
5 (tie). National Bean Museum, $950,000
5 (tie). I-85 water and sewer, $950,000
http://www.thestate.com/169/v-print/story/62546.html
P&C criticizes County’s contribution to charities again
But why is it ignoring the same practice of the City?
Warwick Jones
Everybody can express an opinion including the Post and Courier. Since the budget session last year, it has been very critical of the County’s practice of distributing funds to charities. The practice has existed for some years but last year was the first the newspaper questioned it. It questioned it again in an editorial last Sunday.
We concede some questions needed to be asked. And since the issue was first raised by the newspaper last year, the County has made changes and tightened up the criteria for distributions. But what surprises us, is that the City of Charleston has a similar program and the newspaper never mentions it. We wonder why?
County budgeted about $315,000 in fiscal 2007
To recapitulate, the County budgeted to distribute $315,000 to charities (Outside Agencies) this fiscal year. The amounts in previous years were of a similar magnitude. Council members nominated the charities of their choice and the whole package of distributions was agreed to by full Council. It is true that prior to this fiscal year, Council members had wide discretion in their choices. But at last year’s discussion, largely driven by Council member Condon, conditions were imposed - the recipient must be a registered charity, it must meet reporting and auditing requirements, the purpose of the funds must be clearly defined etc.
The new conditions imposed by the Council were not enough for the two new members Thurmond and Schweers who at the last meeting of the Finance Committee expressed displeasure with the whole process and asked that it be terminated. (See County Council, March 1, 2007) Council member Bostic, who spoke against the process last year, joined them. But their effort to terminate it failed. Council member Condon asked that criteria for allocation be more fully determined and Council agreed.
City budgeted over $500,000 in fiscal 2007
We first learned of the City’s practices when we attended a budget session late last year. The City had allocated $500,000 for Assistance Programs (distribution to charities) from the General Fund. We asked in Citizen’s Participation why there was no scrutiny of these amounts and reminded the Council that the County had received considerable criticism about its distributions. In what was a very rare occurrence for us, the Mayor and CFO rose immediately to rebut our remarks. The application for funds was a formal process. The applications were scrutinized by a committee, and ranked according to defined criteria. What’s more, the County had approached the City and had modeled its new process on the City’s, they said.
As we have been attending City Council meetings for some year and never heard any discussion about these distributions, we confess to surprise. But on reflection, we ask who picks the Committee and what are the criteria? I am sure that the City would tell us if we asked but the purpose of this note is not address the issue of whether the practice of both the County and City is right or wrong. It is whether the Post and Courier is even handed in its criticism? And a perusal of the list of recipients of City funds would suggest there is plenty of scope and justification for the P&C to ask the same questions it is asking the County.
No discussion by City Council
We would also make theses observations. The distributions by the County were discussed and agreed to in Council meetings – and last year at great length. We don’t recall any issues over a single recipient of funding, but the final list was of those remaining after a culling by staff. In the case of the City, the distributions were just part of the overall budget. There was no discussion at all over the distributions. Indeed, the item could have been easily missed as it was just a part of the budget papers. We are not suggesting that any recipient was undeserving but there was more opportunity for public scrutiny of the County list than there was of the City’s list. So why was the City ignored by the P&C?
To see the Editorial in last Sunday’s edition of the Post and Courtier, press Download file
To see the County’s budgeted 2007 distributions to Outside Agencies, press Download file
To see the City’s budgeted distribution to charities in the last 3 years, press Download file
http://charlestonwatch.com/2007/03/pc_criticizes_countys_contribu.html#more
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