AUBURN — There were too many questions about funding for economic development and regional arts for councilors to reach any agreement Monday night.
Councilors will take up the questions of funding the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council and L/A Arts at a future workshop.
“In my opinion, we should make a decision about the growth council well before L/A Arts, both because of the activities done and the amount of money we are talking about,” Councilor Joshua Shea said.
The groups are two of the six agencies funded jointly by the cities of Lewiston and Auburn. They include the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport, Great Falls TV, Lewiston-Auburn 911, the Lewiston Auburn Transit Committee, L/A Arts and the growth council. Combined, the six budgets amount to $1,624,543 in spending for the city of Lewiston and $1,600,719 for the city of Auburn.
Lewiston councilors approved full funding for all six agencies when they approved their budget on April 30.
Don Gerrish, interim city manager, said the Auburn councilors are on track to settle their budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year early in June.
Councilors Monday had little to say about the airport, 911 dispatch center, Great Falls TV and the transit committee.
But the arts and economic development groups deserve deeper scrutiny, councilors said. They’ll look deeper into both at a future meeting.
Shea said he has issues with paying $20,160 to L/A Arts when they offered very few programs in Auburn.
Instead, he suggested setting aside that money to fund arts programs. Local agencies would be able to request grants from the city.
“If they want to come back next year with a package that shows what they spend in Auburn, that’s fine,” Shea said. “But I’m not comfortable turning that money over to a programming agency when there are ton of them now.”
Councilor Mary Lafontaine agreed that L/A Arts needs more scrutiny but disagreed with cutting their funding now.
“I’d vote to keep it as recommended this year, knowing we will think about where to moved forward in the future,” Lafontaine said. “My biggest issue is doing it now, in a budget cycle over $20,000 doesn’t make sense to me.”
Councilors couldn’t agree on whether to fully fund the agency, cut it entirely or trim the amount it would get.
Councilors had as many concerns about the growth council’s $160,687 proposed funding request. Shea said he thinks the group is valuable and does marketing for the entire Lewiston-Auburn community that cannot be replaced.
But Councilor Belinda Gerry said she had concerns about the salaries the growth council pays its employees.
Shea agreed he would like to see better accounting of the groups associated with the growth council, including development corporations for both Lewiston and Auburn and private companies that run industrial parks in both cities.
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