City budget cuts appropriations
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on May 19, 2015 1:46 PM
A Goldsboro City Council budget discussion Monday afternoon revealed that the proposed budget for 2015-2016 will cut funding for many organizations, such as the Wayne County Museum and Literacy Connections, or remove funding entirely for some agencies, such as WAGES and the Mental Health Association.
WAGES (Wayne Action Group for Economic Solvency), an organization that heads up programs such as Meals on Wheels and a Head Start program for children, will receive nothing from the city as the budget currently reads.
Last fiscal year was the first time WAGES had been given any funding by the city, said Mayor Pro-Tempore Chuck Allen during budget discussions.
"They came to us and had a waiting list" so funding was provided, Allen said.
The Wayne County Mental Health Association, which requested $2,500, also will receive nothing as the budget stands.
Literacy Connections, an organization that educates illiterate people in Wayne County, requested $26,500 this year but will receive just $12,000.
Across the board, the city cut nearly all donations to agencies, reducing many donations to agencies by thousands of dollars.
This includes the Wayne Initiative for School Health (WISH), which requested $50,000 and will only receive $15,000 as the budget currently reads.
Some council members questioned why any funding was being provided to WISH in the first place.
"Why are we funding something that's a county responsibility? I mean education is a county responsibility," said Gene Aycock. "I'm just questioning, since it's three out of six school around the city -- 100 percent of those schools are in Wayne County. This is something that is the school and the health department."
Finance director Kaye Scott said it provides comprehensive health care to three of the six schools - Goldsboro High School, Dillard Middle School and Wayne School of Engineering -- in an inner-city area, as three of the six health care centers operated by WISH are located at inner-city schools in Goldsboro.
"The thing with WISH is that the school has a $150 million budget, the Mental Health Association has a however many millions of dollars budget, and so we might need to look at the funding," Allen said. "But I do know that city's been a really successful program overall."
City manager Scott Stevens reminded council members that it was their choice whether or not any organization or agency received any funding whatsoever.
"You know, again, like most of the agencies we support, most of them are your choice whether or not to provide support," Stevens said. "There's no mandate to fund them, so if we have historically funded that one we can continue, it does provide good service to kids, but you certainly don't have to."
Council member Bill Broadaway urged the city council to rethink pulling funding for WAGES.
"I just want us to think about a little bit," Broadaway said. "I'm telling you that is the only meal these people get. I know Gene (Aycock) delivers, I know I deliver out there -- it's something we need to think about hard. Of all the good things that we do, it's sad to see (the situation of some people we deliver to) if somebody wants to ride with me on one of those routes sometime. They do a lot of other things, but they do provide meals with a program called meals on wheels that feeds people. It's a hot meal five days a week."
WAGES served 796 Wayne County citizens in the first seven months of the last fiscal year, 421 of which were home deliveries, and 66 percent of which were city residents, Ms. Scott said.
Funding for the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce and the Wayne County Museum would also be cut under the proposed budget.
The Chamber of Commerce requested $20,000, but would only receive $10,000 under the current budget -- a $5,000 decrease from the previous year.
The museum requested $22,000, which was the amount received the previous year, but would only receive $12,000 under the proposed budget.
But the Council is not finished discussing the budget. It will reconvene Thursday, May 28, at noon to continue discussions, and will adopt a proposed budget and any revisions at the June 1 council meeting.
If no decisions are able to be made during this time frame, the council will wait until the June 15 council meeting to adopt a budget.
At a public hearing following the budget work session, leaders of several of the organizations whose funding was cut spoke out in protest.
Literacy Connections director Pat Yates gave a lengthy presentation to the council, demonstrating why the requested money for her agency is necessary.
Ms. Yates said 76 percent of Literacy Connections students in 2014 were city residents, and that 52,772 adults -- or 58 percent of the adult population -- read below a ninth grade level. The city's help is crucial to keeping the program strong, she said.
Brantley Partin with the Wayne County Museum also came to the hearing to request the museum funding not be cut. Partin noted that the museum provides a meeting space for the community for free because of the funding, and meeting space is in high demand.
Former Goldsboro mayor Tommy Gibson spoke on behalf of WAGES.
"One of the primary ways (the funding helped last year) was that we've got lots of folks, hundreds of people, who are on a waiting list to get meals every day, five days a week," Gibson said. "We served Meals on Wheels and congregate -- the senior meeting areas -- so far (this month) we have served 461 Meals on Wheels, 403 per month who gather at these congregate areas."
Without the city's help, Gibson said, the program will suffer.