FARMINGTON — In an effort to seek new leadership and have stable funding, members of the Greater Franklin Development Council have asked Franklin County commissioners to consider another funding model.
Council members suggested subcontracting for the council’s services.
Currently the organization’s request for funding goes under the program grants in the county budget. For several years, the county’s Budget Advisory Committee has reduced the request from the original $60,000.
In June, the advisory committee voted to fund the council at $20,000, with $10,000 of it coming from tax-increment financing funds. Commissioners recommended $42,000. The budget panel failed to override the commissioners’ proposal, so the council this year is funded by $21,000 from the TIF and $21,000 from county taxes.
Council Executive Director Alison Hagerstrom plans to retire in August 2017 and the board will be seeking a new leader.
Hagerstrom asked commissioners if the county could subcontract the economic development service to an outside entity.
If the council wins the contract to provide the service, then the funding will be stable and it would help attract good leadership, she said.
If the council does not get the contract, the council won’t exist, Hagerstrom said.
As generally done when a county or municipality contracts out for services, it is typical to prepare a request for proposal, said Town Manager Richard Davis, also a council director.
Director Ed David said the council could submit a proposal to provide the service.
“We could continue to do it the way we do now,” but stable funding is needed, council Chairwoman Mary Howes said.
The county had an Office of Economic Development in the 1990s until the nonprofit Greater Franklin Development Corp., now known as the council, was created in 1998 by a group of local businesspeople.
“Our goal is to create and retain quality employment opportunities in Franklin County by attracting new businesses, assisting local employers, and encouraging entrepreneurship,” the website states. “We are a nonprofit organization that receives funding annually through multiple sources: Franklin County government program grant and private businesses including financial institutions.”
The funding of $42,000 a year is not enough to sustain the council, Hagerstrom said. Fundraising for about $30,000 more takes an incredible amount of time away from economic development.
It is just not sustainable, she said.
Commissioners asked Hagerstrom to give them an ideal budget figure for economic development.
She said $100,000 to $150,000, adding that it would be good to have the contract be for three years.
The county would have to put out a request for proposal for services and a new contract would not be entered into until July 1, 2017, County Clerk Julie Magoon said.
That would allow the county to budget money in a line item in the commissioners’ budget and go through the budget process, if that is the direction commissioners’ take on the matter, she said.
“I think the struggle in the program grants is that we are looked at as a social program,” Howes said.
The county budget committee’s role is advisory, but it does have some say in the funding, Commissioner Gary McGrane of Jay said. He believes the committee should be giving a bottom line on the budget and commissioners will decide where it is spent, instead of changing line items in the department budgets.
The first step is to develop a request for proposal, he said, and the second is to decide whether the cost should be put in a line item in the commissioners’ budget.
Commissioner Charles Webster of Farmington said he did not see county taxpayers supporting a budget of $100,000 to $150,000.
It was pointed out that half of that could come out of the county TIF.
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