Logan County Board Finance Committee
Committee works through concerns with the Community Benefit Fund

 

[November 17, 2024] 

On Tuesday, November 12th, the Finance Committee of the Logan County Board met in the Blue Room at the Logan County Safety Complex. This meeting was supposed to begin at 5:45 p.m., but started later as Dale Nelson, the chairman of the committee, was unable to make it at that time. The Zoning and Economic Development Committee meeting was first. See LDN’s separate article on the new solar farm project for a rundown of this meeting.

The full attendance list of this committee meeting was Nelson, Keenan Leesman, who is the vice chairman, JR Glenn, and Joseph Kuhlman. Bob Sanders was absent. Due to Emily Davenport’s recent resignation from the Board, there is currently an open seat on this committee. This means that the committee now only needs three members present to make a quorum until this seat is filled.

The first matter of business regarded setting guidelines for the Community Benefit Fund. Frequent readers of LDN’s County Board coverage may recall last month, where a request by the Community Action Partnership of Central Illinois (CAPCIL) for funding to fix their building in Lincoln was tabled due to these guidelines not yet being set. It was decided that agreeing to fund CAPCIL without these guidelines would lead to too much negative fallout, as they would not have a leg to stand on if denying funding to other organizations.

The discussions began with Leesman sharing that he had gotten some examples of guidelines for similar funds from other counties. Leesman did not want to copy any one county’s guidelines, but maybe take some of the best ideas from multiple guidelines when creating Logan County’s. Nelson then stated that it was his personal belief that organizations that are entirely state funded should not be eligible for funding from the Community Benefit Fund. “Entities that are solely based off of federal taxes, state taxes, levies, I don’t think that we should be donating to them,” Nelson said. “For example, CAPCIL,” Nelson continued, “they are all solely based on state and federal tax levies and grants. I don’t think we should be using Community Benefit funds to provide that when they already receive funding.” Nelson continued on, comparing CAPCIL to the County Board and the ways in which they are required to use the funding they receive through taxes.

Tracy Bergin, an employee of Logan County’s Zoning Office, disagreed with Nelson, directly stating that CAPCIL does not receive tax funding. “They don’t get any tax levy, they’re not a taxing body,” Bergin said to Nelson. “They apply for grants if they operate programs that are grant funded in six counties, but they don’t get any tax revenue. They’re a non-profit.” This led to a slightly heated back-and-forth between Bergin and Nelson. Nelson seemed to be trying to understand Bergin’s points while Bergin continued to talk and explain. Nelson stated that he would go back and check, but he recalls CAPCIL getting revenue from taxes.

Glenn tried to move the discussion back to the purpose of the Community Benefit Fund. “The hundred thousand foot question is ‘what is the Community Benefit Fund?’” Bergin continued stating that, over the last several years, she has seen funds from the Community Benefit Fund being used for both projects that were started by the county as well as people coming forward and requesting funding. “Is this a fund that the county determines use for projects like playgrounds and things, or is it just something that we are letting people ask for money from and then you evaluate those requests?”

DeRoss asked Nelson if he could chime in, requesting that the committee not disqualify all 501c3’s (non-profits) from consideration for the Community Benefit Fund. He stated that there are many organizations that fall under the 501c3 umbrella, including non-profit veteran organizations. DeRoss stated that if they were going to disqualify 501c3’s, he would urge them to pick and choose which ones to disqualify.

He then posed a question about Nelson’s earlier comment that organizations that receive tax funding should not be able to qualify for donations from the Community Benefit Fund. “If people that get tax money can’t use this, how come we give it to parks, cities, or the county?”

Nelson then defended his earlier statement, saying if CAPCIL has a budget of $12 million each year, could they not have put money aside for a situation such as the one they are currently in. Bergin then spoke up again, explaining that grant funding is very specific. She gave several examples, stating that if grant money is designated for a certain purpose, you cannot use that money on something else. This is where the exchange between Nelson and Bergin became a bit heated, with Nelson stating he was sharing his opinion and Bergin stating she was trying to explain how grants work.

For full transparency on the matter, LDN published an article on this very subject last month with the details. CAPCIL is currently looking for a roof repair and needs $21,000 that their insurance policy will not cover. They requested both the city of Lincoln and the County Board contribute $10,750 to this fund. In this meeting DeRoss asked directly if funds were set aside for repairs such as this, to which Brianne Titus, the CAPCIL representative present, stated they did, but not for something such as this. Titus shared that they are not allowed to save away their money like that due to it being grant funding.

It was during this exchange that Glenn again chimed in, allowing cooler heads to prevail. He stated, “now we are in the how and why… we are back in the minutiae of if they qualify or not… we should leave that out of this and get back to [what the Community Benefit Fund is].”

After this, it was suggested that the Community Benefit Fund either be used for physical modifications/additions to the county, or events that might generate more tourism. It was also suggested that they bring this up at the November Workshop meeting to get more input from members who are not on this particular committee. Leesman stated that it might be beneficial to make a working definition of what Community Benefit Fund means to help guide their creation of guidelines. Nelson ultimately stated that he will reach out to Andrea Runge of the LEAD program to “pick her brain” on the matter, and also have Kati Newman, the Logan County Administrative Assistant, reach out to the County Association to see if they can get any ideas from there.

In other business

After this was new business. This included two proposed reductions in county taxes, both of which were passed to the Workshop meeting. Next was a request for ambulance billing costs to be increased. Due to the nature of the contract the county has, ambulance billing costs cannot be increased without County Board approval. After this was a funding request for a program called Grow Me that is put on by both CAPCIL and the Logan County Jail. The funding for this would come from the Community Benefit Fund. The committee decided that, since they had funded this previously from the Community Benefit Fund, they had a precedent to do so again, leading to the decision to pass this on to the Workshop meeting as well. Lastly, the budget was discussed briefly, and it was shared that minor changes had been made, but nothing that required the board to post the budget for another 15 days. It was shortly after this that the meeting was adjourned.

[Matt Boutcher]

Past related articles

Logan County Board Finance Committee
Guidelines for Community Benefit Fund Not Yet Set
Committee tables CAPCIL request
https://archives.lincolndailynews.com
/2024/Oct/11/NEWS/today_county01.shtml