11 groups added to city grants list

Eleven Oahu nonprofit agencies learned Wednesday they will get a slice of the city’s $5.1 million grants-in-aid pie because of a City Council decision to increase the number of organizations selected to benefit from the new fund.

Forty-one other nonprofits that had already been awaiting grants found out their slices of the pie will be considerably smaller than expected under the plan proffered by City Council Chairman Ernie Martin and approved Wednesday with a 7-1 vote. Councilman Breene Harimoto cast the lone
no vote while Councilman Ikaika Anderson abstained, citing a potential conflict because a relative had applied for a grant.

The new draft raised concerns from Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration about the process used to expand the list and the effects of reducing the amounts earmarked for each agency
by 25 percent without any analysis. A member of the advisory commission told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser she has similar concerns.

The approval of Resolution 13-173 is the latest in a long-running clash between Council leaders and Caldwell about which nonprofits get grants and how much the city should set aside for them in the face of growing fiscal restraints.

The City Charter amendment voters approved in 2012 requires that one-half of 1 percent of city revenues be distributed to nonprofits. The amendment established an advisory committee to vet applications from nonprofits and make recommendations to the Council.

On Aug. 1, the inaugural seven-member commission submitted its list of 41 nonprofits from a list of 134 submittals, based on an elaborate scoring system devised with the help of the city Department of Community Services.

The revised list approved Wednesday adds the 11 agencies that the commission designated 42nd through 52nd on the priority list, said Martin, a former city deputy human services director. He told reporters after the vote that nonprofits are facing tough economic times.

“If I had my choice, I would fund them all,” he said, adding that he believes investing in “social infrastructure” is as important as funding for roads, sewers and other physical infrastructure.

In fact, Council members voted to include $8.3 million in funding to nonprofits in this year’s budget on top of the $5.1 million set aside for the fund. In protest, Caldwell refused to sign the city’s
$2 billion operating budget and has vowed he will not release any of that money.

Martin said Caldwell’s refusal to give nonprofits that money factored into the decision to expand the list, as did the shortened time frame the city had to put together the process — and the time given to agencies to submit applications — in this inaugural year of the new fund.

No money could be distributed until January anyway, Martin said, allowing the agencies now getting less than originally anticipated to adjust its finances.

City Human Services Director Pam Witty-Oakland said, however, that the advisory committee’s priority list of how much the nonprofits should receive were based on what was needed for each to achieve specific goals.

The reduction of funding puts both her department and the nonprofits receiving the grants back at the drawing board “to ensure sufficient funding to deliver the proposed outcomes designed to address the community needs, or to amend proposed program goals within the funding constraint,” Witty-Oakland told Council members.

Stefanie Sakamoto, a member of the advisory commission, attended the meeting but did not testify. Asked her reaction to the changes the Council made, Sakamoto also said she is worried how the reduced amounts would affect the original list of agencies and their projects.

For instance, she said, Pali Momi Medical Center sought money to buy an automated breast ultrasound machine.

“A 25 percent reduction for them may mean they might not be able to purchase the machine, which means that they would not be able to serve as many patients as they stated in their application,” Sakamoto said.

More than two dozen nonprofits testified  — with about half arguing that the Council should approve Martin’s list and the others lobbying for the commission’s original list.

Staff members from Volunteer Legal Services Hawaii said trimming 25 percent off the $152,000 they had requested would have a serious impact on its ability to provide free legal help to low- and moderate-income families.

L. Dew Kaneshiro, the organization’s executive director, said the roughly $35,000 reduction is about how much it pays for a full-time paralegal or 85 percent the salary of a staff attorney for an organization that has five full-time and three part-time employees. “We’re just recovering from more than two years of a fiscal deficit,” Kaneshiro said.

Supporters of Women In Need, a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence, the homeless, and those who have had problems with substance abuse, supported Martin’s list, which added $116,000 for their organization.

Travis Idol, president of the Hawaii Forest Institute, testified for Martin’s list, which gives his agency $56,000 for its mission to promote the health and productivity of Hawaii’s forests through restoration, education and scientific research.

Idol’s agency was 44th on the original priority list and he noted that his agency scored only 3/10ths of a percentage point below the cutoff for funding in the original list.

“For groups like us, although I respectfully understand the hardships that partial funding may bring to some of the grant recipients, allowing groups like us to get funding at all allows our project to go forward and to be successfully implemented.”

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The Honolulu City Council on Wednesday adopted a new list of 52 nonprofit agencies that will receive grants-in-aid funding through Resolution 13-173 in the 2014 fiscal year. An original list submitted by an advisory committee recommended funding for only the top 41 agencies on the list.