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City budget cuts funds to outside agencies

April 23, 2007 12:36 am

This year, the Arc of Rappahannock is helping 37 Fredericksburg residents with mental retardation to get dental care that wouldn't be available to them anywhere else.

Meanwhile, the Sister City Association is promoting cultural exchange programs to highlight Fredericksburg's partnership with Frejus, France.

Both groups have asked for money from the Fredericksburg taxpayers to keep doing these things next year.

While the Sister City group has been recommended to receive its $4,000 request, the Arc was recommended to get none of its $4,620 request.

As a result, Arc Executive Director Jan Griffin said she's going to have to stop fixing rotting teeth and other major dental problems found among the city residents who visit Arc's dental clinic.

"I don't know how I am going to find it in my heart to tell these people, 'I cannot help you,'" Griffin said.

The Arc's situation is an example of how seemingly small decisions in the city budget process can have a big impact outside of City Hall.

Fredericksburg officials are proposing to contribute $6.8 million to outside agencies in next year's budget. That's 5.7 percent more than the city gave these groups this year.

As next year's budget deliberations wear on, two City Council members are taking a closer look at this part of the budget. Councilmen Matt Kelly and Marvin Dixon outlined several potential cuts to groups on this list on Tuesday.

Dixon said his recommendations were made out of an attempt to be equitable between what outside agencies get and what the workers in City Hall get.

They are also an attempt to avoid having to raise taxes on city homeowners. The proposed budget includes a 10-cent real-estate tax increase. Dixon and Kelly's proposal could reduce that by a cent.

"I do not want to raise the real-estate tax even a penny," Dixon said. "I also don't want to cut anyone's allocations. But how do I reconcile those two extremes? You're going to have to work both ends to the middle."

Dixon and Kelly also recommended some cuts inside City Hall.

Dixon suggested that the city could reduce three more pennies off the tax rate--equal to $230,000 each--by cutting into the 2 percent cost-of-living increase proposed for city employees, by raising the meals tax and by adopting an additional $240,000 in spending cuts that city officials found at the council's request.

Kelly suggested the council look at capping the amount of budget increases that it will absorb from the constitutional offices the state mandates it provide.

Similarly, he said Fredericksburg should cap the amount of money it gives to outside agencies.

The list of groups that apply for this money includes a broad collection of 59 nonprofit and quasi-governmental groups that range from the Rappahannock Regional Jail--the largest fund-receiver, at $3 million--to the Rappahannock River Basin Commission--the lowest, at $1,000.

Each year, they all submit funding applications to the city. Their pleas fill three boxes in city Budget Manager Mark Whitley's office.

In reviewing them, city officials inevitably have to choose among programs that all claim to provide a vital service to the community.

Griffin said she received a letter saying her group had not been recommended for funding, but no reason was given.

Some council members say this system could be improved.

"Some groups have a funding formula, but others, it seems to be a bit of a grab bag," said Vice Mayor Kerry Devine. "It could be a little bit better to help us make decisions, but also to help groups know what the process is."

"We need to make sure that the outside funding that we are appropriating is directly proportionate to how much they benefit city residents," Councilwoman Debby Girvan said. "It should not be based just on what they were funded at last year."

It's not clear yet whether the council will adopt Kelly and Dixon's recommendations, which were made after they pored over the funding applications.

"It's still an open matter," Councilman George Solley said. "I appreciate their work, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything" they recommended.

Girvan said she thought the cuts were too arbitrary and "seem to hit our most vulnerable citizens the hardest."

Council members will discuss these, along with the rest of the budget, at a work session tomorrow at 6 p.m. in City Hall.