By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Funding requests for 2020 by four outside agencies will be presented to the Hays city commission during its Thursday work session.
The agencies – Grow Hays, Fort Hays State University (FHSU), CARE Council, Downtown Hays Development Corporation (DHDC) – are each requesting amounts that are more than the $25,000 budget authority of City Manager Toby Dougherty. FHSU, Grow Hays and CARE Council are funded through the city’s general fund. DHDC is funded through the Hays Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB).
“The governing body will determine the amount of their allocations mid-July during the budget discussion,” Dougherty said. “Nothing will decided [during the next two weeks.] It’ll be decided as part of the budget process.”
FHSU is requesting the same $100,000 as in the past for its City of Hays Scholarship Program for Scholastic Achievement.
CARE Council is requesting $168,000 for social services funding, an increase of $4,000 from last year.
The CARE Council is also asking the city to budget $60,000 in Special Alcohol Tax Funds for 2020. The monies for drug and alcohol prevention programs come from a portion of the local alcoholic liquor tax. That money is divided equally each year between the CARE Council, the special parks fund, and the general fund.
The $50,973 request by DHDC is down five percent from 2019.
Grow Hays (formerly the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development) is asking for $100,000 from the city.
“As they transitioned to Grow Hays, there was a year they didn’t take their funding. They didn’t ask for funding this year (2019) but they are asking for funding going forward.”
A few more non-profit groups’ requests are within the $25,000 spending authority of the city manager, including Wild West Festival, Ellis County Historical Society, and the Hays Arts Council which are all funded with CVB monies. Although Sister Cities is not an outside agency, it also receives money from the CVB budget.
Right now, according to Dougherty, “the city is not in a position where it’s facing funding cuts to outside agencies” as is the county. Ellis County commissioners determined earlier this week the county will award $928,800 in funding requests. On June 10, 16 outside agencies presented requests for a total of $1.073 million from Ellis County.
“The budget I’m giving the governing body will be not only balanced, but putting money away in reserves, and it will have a pay increase for our employees,” he said.
Dougherty added there will be no suggested cuts in outside agency funding on his end in order to fund city operations somewhere else.
City commissioners will receive their 2020 draft budget books at the June 27 meeting. The proposed budget will be presented by Dougherty during the July 2 meeting.
Also on tomorrow’s agenda is discussion of the renewal of property/casualty/liability insurance coverage.
“We are going to see a slight increase in premium this year,” Dougherty noted, “which is not bad because we reassessed all of our property. We had a significant increase in property being covered.
“Because we’re with Midwest Public Risk, we had only a slight increase because there is a cap on premium. So we’re getting a pretty good bang for the buck based off the amount of property we added under it.”
The complete June 20 agenda is available here.
The work session starts at 6:30 p.m. in Hays City Hall, 1507 Main.