News

Council slashes nonprofit requests

By Bill Moss, Published: May 8, 2015

The Hendersonville City Council, smarting from the loss of $360,000 in business taxes and already committed to a tax increase to balance the budget, trimmed requests by nonprofit agencies by $113,000.

Council members followed the recommendation of City Manager John Connet and kept the total appropriation under $10,000. The total came in at $99,380. The council also agreed to develop a policy in the future for granting nonprofits' request and for tracking how they money is spend. That's similar to Henderson County's practice of requiring a contract and paying the agencies quarterly based on their reports.

The council took up the nonprofit agency requests toward the end of a budget workshop Friday in which it also agreed to a 2-cent property tax increase made necessary, Connet said, by the loss of $360,000 from the privilege license tax, which the Legislature repealed.

“We’re seeing more requests than we’ve ever had so your number is going to just keep growing and growing,” budget analyst Brian Pahle said. “That’s the reason for defining the public purpose.”

The new policy would be effective for next year's budget requests.

The council granted the full requests of the Chamber of Commerce, the Partnership for Economic Development and Agribusiness Henderson County.

“Those are clearly public purposes,” City Manager John Connet said. “That’s the easy button.”

The council cut most other requests. The Flat Rock Playhouse, which received $80,000 this year (including $50,000 for an emergency mold remediation contract), requested $30,000 and received $11,800. Hendersonville Little Theatre requested $15,000 but got just $800. Interfaith Assistance Ministry, which is seeking money for its new building, asked for $26,000 and got $3,000.

“For those of us that are out there, this is the thing we hear about as much as anything else,” Councilman Jerry Smith said. "We’ll hear about this a lot more than we will a lot of the important things that are in this book.”

“The more you do here, the less police protection, the less fire protection, the less planning grants we can do to the whole public,” Pahle said.

“We also need to know we can’t fund everything,” Councilman Jeff Miller said. “We can’t reasonably fund everything.”