By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The withdrawal of an agenda item originally scheduled for Thursday night’s Hays City Commission work session brought about changes in outside agency funding for the city’s 2016 budget.
City Manager Toby Dougherty asked commissioners for a “consensus” in allocations for the agencies that had been left at the 2015 budget level, although three groups asked for increases in 2016.
Commissioners agreed to fund the higher amounts requested — another $25,000 for the Fort Hays State University Scholarship Program; $379 more for the Ellis County Historical Society; and an additional $818 for the Hays Arts Council.
Of that $26,197 in increases, $25,000 was deducted from the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development request, decreasing ECCED’s city funding to $61,353, slightly more than 30 percent. Commissioner James Meier advocated cutting the ECCED request “by half.”
“I have a lot of concerns about the organization (Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development) and whether they’re really doing what they should be doing, which is basically to be the economic development arm for the city of Hays,” said Meier.
“I think that it kind of came to life over the Big Creek Travel Plaza proposal. Two weeks ago, I got this packet which apparently was supposed to be the final form, but I read through it and I was able to identify spelling errors and grammatical errors. The front page is addressed to ‘The Honorable Eber Phelps’ but later on the page it says ‘The Honorable Mayor Schwaller.’
“In Section 5 of the Economic Development Application (to the city of Hays), it says that they have requested outside agencies funds from other government agencies or received outside funds. But then in Section 10 when it says to provide names and information for those entities, it says ‘Not Applicable.’
“To me that means the application is void and not complete.”
“I think this is something that should have been caught by the Coalition. It was brought to the table by the Coalition….They’ve been very publicly supporting this project, which is fine…(but) I don’t think they’re doing their job as far as really screening and giving a quality product to us,” Meir concluded.
Commissioner Lance Jones nodded his head in agreement.
“I actually spent the last two days fuming about this,” Jones said. “I took a highlighter and there wasn’t a single page in this whole document that didn’t have a single error on it somewhere. I was very upset with the development group (NWK Investments of Colby) and then realized today I was mad at the wrong entity.
“Ellis County Economic Development should have caught this. They’re…wasting city staff time and they’re wasting a lot of the commission’s time,” Jones added.
The proposal was removed from Thursday’s agenda by NWK Investments on Wednesday. According to Hays Dougherty, the agenda item was pulled at the developers’ request due to potential changes in the application.
“The development group does have a successful track record,” Mayor Eber Phelps pointed out. “Look at their (travel plaza) operation in Colby. “When you come to an economic development group in any community…you’re sort of taking them on as your agent to know the nuances of how things work in that particular community and what the (city) commission expects, what (city) staff is able to put forth in assistance. The Hays city staff is not economic development personnel.”
“That’s why we give the Coalition money,” said Meier. “To be honest … I would just like to see (city funding) eliminated because if they’re not going to do their job, they shouldn’t be receiving city money.”
“I agree they have not done what we have requested. I think we should put them on ‘warning’ that if it’s the same next year, they’re done,” countered Vice-Mayor Shaun Musil.
“I can say the Coalition has been involved in business development and lots of other issues around town that involve economic development. I’m as disappointed as anybody in this,” Dougherty said in a response to a question from Musil.
Commissioners agreed on the need for “something in place like the Coalition for economic development.” They also talked about the possibility of using the ECCED $87,550 budget to instead hire a city employee responsible for economic development but were reluctant to do so.
The revised Big Creek Travel Plaza proposal is expected to be before the city commission on Sept. 3.
Meier also suggested eliminating city funding for the Hays Sister Cities Advisory Board but was outvoted by the other commissioners.
Thursday was the final time the commission reviewed the 2016 budget before the Aug. 13 public hearing and adoption of it at next week’s regular commission meeting.
“You can’t increase the mill levy or the total amount spent, because the budget has already been published, ” advised Dougherty. “Any changes you would make could only be a reduction.”
The levy of 25 mills has “remained the same for the past seven or eight years,” according to Dougherty.
Commissioner Henry Schwaller was absent from Thursday’s work session.