News

County commission restores human services funding

By Bill Moss, Published: June 1, 2015

The chairman of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners announced Monday night that the board would fund nonprofit agencies at their current level, quelling what promised to be a storm of protest during a public hearing on the county’s $121 million 2015-16 budget.

Board Chairman Tommy Thompson said the commissioners had agreed in conversations before Monday’s meeting to fund 18 nonprofit agencies at the current level. In his recommended budget County Manager Steve Wyatt had recommended a 10 percent cut for the agencies that provide services such as health care, housing, legal aid, food assistance and domestic violence shelter. The amount the board has agreed to fund is still below the requested amount of most of the agencies. Even so, the crowd of nonprofit directors in the board’s assembly room broke into applause announced the restored funding level.
As for nonprofit agencies outside of human services — including those involved in the arts, land conservation and the environment — Thompson said commissioners “are not in total agreement” on that funding.
“In years to come you need to be very proactive, very aggressive in your funding and look out of the box in trying to get funds from others places so they will not be coming from the county,” Thompson said, speaking directly to the managers of those nonprofits, including the nonprofit Playhouse, Hendersonville Little Theatre, the Arts Council and Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy.
The budget discussion was continuing Monday night.