In late 2022 and early 2023, Guilford County staff, including County Manager Mike Halford and the Budget Department, worked tirelessly to put together a fair, rational and coherent policy to determine which community-based organizations (CBOs) – nonprofits that provide services that benefit the public – would receive funding in the county budget.
Now it looks like all that work is going down the drain – or perhaps a better way to say it is that the county commissioners are throwing the policy out the window.
In early 2023, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners voted to approve the new policy for funding CBOs to replace the haphazard way that commissioners have funded their favorite organizations in the past.
In previous years, the commissioners have approved funding requests that have come in at the last minute or had a questionable integration with county goals. In some cases, money in the final county budget was added at the last minute and has gone to groups that some commissioners had never even heard of.
The new policy was meant to change all that. However, the new policy was approved by the Board of Commissioners in January – and now it’s June. June is the month when the chairman of the Board of Commissioners and the other commissioners have to make deals and do some horse-trading to gather enough votes to pass a budget. That usually means funding non-profits that are near and dear to certain commissioners.
When Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston was asked recently how confident he was that this year the commissioners would stick to the new policy and only fund CBOs in the budget that met the established criteria, he said there may be some exceptions.
“Those are guidelines,” Alston said of the official new policy that was adopted by a vote of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners just six months ago.
The policy calls for organizations to have met an application deadline, demonstrated program outcomes and provided detailed financial data. The groups would also need to provide information regarding organizational programming and operational costs.
Guilford County Budget Director Toy Beeninga oversaw much of the work that went into the development the brand new policy.
When Beeninga was asked recently if he wished to bet that the commissioners would stick to that carefully crafted policy when the budget is approved this year, Beeninga said that he is not really a betting man.
More of the same old lies and BS. Your tax dollars being used for votes and personal kickbacks. You voted them in!
Yep!@ i wonder how much of the budget goes in thier pockets or family members?
I would not hold my breath that they will adhere to the policy. Too many people and hand out seekers looking for what they feel they have been promised to get their vote This city is for sale..
Why is government giving to any nonprofit? Why does a nonprofit need taxpayer money? If a nonprofit is so worthwhile, why can’t it support itself? If it can’t, maybe it is not needed and exists solely for the staff to make money.
As long as the Greensboro Housing Authority is penalized for its discriminatory placement practices and refusal to release statistics when asked (all requests have been ignored), I can sleep at night. When a non-profit refuses to be transparent I can assure folks they’re hiding their nefarious actions. Their behavior has been insulting and leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of Guilford County.
Maybe the thoughtful new policy does not cover forgivable “loans”…
If Billy Yow had tried this crap skip would be spinning on his bald head. skip I still have my shirt Billy made in your honor it’s one of my favorites. I will do you the honor and wear it to the next woke democrat meeting, just in case you’ve forgotten what it says