The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is having to rethink how it distributes nearly $1.8 million in taxpayer money to community-based organizations after changes in the new state budget restricted the use of race- and gender-based criteria by local governments.
The commissioners normally decide during the summer which nonprofit organizations, festivals, museums, arts groups, social service agencies and other community organizations will receive county funding for the fiscal year that began July 1.
This year, however, that process has been put on hold while county officials determine what changes have to be made to comply with the new state law. The commissioners and staff will discuss the new process at a work session on Thursday afternoon, August 6.
Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston said the county can no longer use language favoring organizations or businesses based on race, gender or other diversity, equity and inclusion considerations.
He said it is basically the criteria of the Trump administration working its way through North Carolina Republican leaders.
Alston said, “We can’t have any DEI things in there; it can’t be agenda-specific items in there, and it’s got to be race-neutral.”
The chairman said the changes affect more than the annual distribution of money to community-based organizations and could require the county to revise or rebid contracts that include minority- or women-owned business participation requirements.
Last year, the county changed the name of the Guilford County MWBE (Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises) Department to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Department after the federal government started cutting off funding and threatening to go after anyone who offered programs meant to help minorities.
“We’ve got to put on hold all our contracts for services,” Alston said this week given the new state law. “All of that has to be rebid with that language – anything about minority participation or women-only.”
The changes were included in Senate Bill 257, the state budget bill signed into law on Tuesday, July 7.
The budget eliminated the state Office for Historically Underutilized Businesses and removed references to minority participation goals from a long list of state contracting laws. The changes also affect the authority local governments have used to establish minority- and women-owned business participation programs.
The full effect on the county’s community-based organization funding process isn’t clear yet. Those awards aren’t the same as construction contracts or purchases subject to competitive bidding; however, county officials are reviewing the process to make certain that the criteria and language used to award the money comply with the new law.
Until a few years ago, the Guilford County budget process for funding nonprofits was largely conducted in public.
The county manager and a staff committee reviewed applications from nonprofits and community-based organizations and made recommendations to the Board of Commissioners. The commissioners then held public work sessions to decide which groups would receive taxpayer money and how much each would get.
A lot of taxpayers don’t like seeing county government use their money for those purposes – especially during a difficult economy and right after both Guilford County and the City of Greensboro imposed large property tax increases.
The decisions have often been controversial because commissioners sometimes had direct or indirect ties to nonprofit organizations that received county money. Organizations with connections to commissioners have often been referred to as “pet projects.”
Beginning with the fiscal 2024-2025 budget, the commissioners stopped receiving public recommendations from the county manager. The board conducted the selection process behind closed doors and revealed the final list of organizations when the decisions had already been made.
The Rhino Times described the process at the time as being like Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.
This year, as in the previous two years, the county manager’s recommended budget didn’t include a proposed list of organizations. It simply set aside about $1.8 million for community-based organization funding.
For years, the commissioners have periodically instructed county staff to develop a rational and fair policy for distributing the money.
A few years ago, then-Budget Director Toy Beeninga, now a deputy county manager, along with his staff, developed a detailed funding policy at the board’s direction. The commissioners unanimously adopted it in the spring and then promptly and completely ignored it when budget season arrived.
The board has gone through that same exercise at least half a dozen times this century. Each time, county staff has spent months developing criteria – and each time the commissioners adopted the policy and then threw it out the window when it’s time to distribute the money.
Last year, Alston described the county’s actual policy this way: “The policy is this: Whatever non-profits five commissioners say get money, do get money.”
The result has been a hodgepodge of organizations with no apparent connection to a consistent set of county priorities.
Some of the organizations do good work. Others, not so much. With still others, it’s difficult to determine exactly what they do.
Commissioners also regularly have to abstain from voting on awards to specific organizations because of conflicts of interest.
One organization that has already received money in the fiscal 2026-2027 budget is the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, which was awarded $200,000. The museum was co-founded by Alston, who remains closely involved in its operation.
The remaining community-based organization money will be distributed after the board determines how to proceed under the new state requirements.
Alston said the new restrictions were included in the massive state budget with little attention given to how they would affect counties and cities.
He said the changes appear to be part of a broader state and federal effort to eliminate DEI policies from government contracting and spending.
For Guilford County, the immediate result is that a nonprofit-funding process that was already inconsistent and difficult to follow
The spigots are FINALLY being turned off. The next target need to the the Indoctrination Centers.
About damn time some common sense prevailed
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Thank God the Trump Administration is moving us towards a color blind society – as Martin Luther King Jr. strove for.
….if Trump is moving us toward a color-blind society… why does his rhetoric so often emphasize racial, ethnic, or national identity when describing who supposedly threatens America? A genuinely color-blind approach would apply the same standards to everyone……not selectively invoke identity when it is politically useful.
Oh right….to Trump a color-blind society means a society turning a blind eye towards racist points of view, lingering impacts of our long racist history, and of course current impacts of ongoing racist policies….
Cheers
Everything in Guilford County and Greensboro is race based, not race neutral. Oh how will Skip and company plus city cohorts beat the system to continue their racists policies at the expense of taxpayers? Stay tuned. Many kickbacks will be affected.
I for one will agree that Skip has always been quick to overuse the race card to a point that it no longer has any real meaning in Guilford County politics. I suggest he has done more harm to racial equity in Greensboro than good.
Bout time, skip is racist, has no soul. Maybe he’ll change, I doubt it
He doesn’t have to change. KARMA is going to change him.
I have a novel idea. Turn off ALL the spigots, and reduce the tax rates.
Govt handouts are nothing more than vote-buying schemes, paid for by the taxpayer, and diluted by the beauracracy. Lose the handouts, and save all this hoop-de-do.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioner’s Vote Buying Machine just blew a Gasket? Wonder if Skip Alston will move on to greener pastures with this setback?
Why not take the $1.8M and use it for the schools? Non-profits should do their own fundraising and not on the backs of taxpayers. Worthy non-profits will continue to be funded by those who care or cease to exist.
The schools in Guilford county get plenty of money but a lot of money is wasted through higher administrative staff pay. Think about time this is regulated as well and spending needs to be cut there as well. What about the education lottery that was sold to us to help public schools it’s like that don’t even exist. I think it’s about time someone stepped in and stopped all this crazy spending.
Last year, the county changed the name of the Guilford County MWBE (Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises) Department to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Department after the federal government started cutting off funding and threatening to go after anyone who offered programs meant to help minorities.
Don’t worry they can deceive the lawmakers and still be able to fund each other’s non profits! Remember what Alston said: they decide “who do get money!”
Did I read Skips quote right? Did he say that all would have to be rebid? I never thought that any of the money or requests were on a bid basis! The money was just handed out as he saw fit!!!!
I think Skip is talking about some county contracts when he is talking about rebidding. When it comes to non profits it’s just a matter of which ones can get enough votes. At least that’s how it’s been in the past. Scott Yost.
I think the best thing to do is just quit giving our tax money to any organization. That way no one has to be concerned about race, gender or any other type of made up segregation criteria.
Use tax money to run the county government and schools and nothing else.
DEI is just a more recent label for affirmative action. Both programs discriminate against White people. I would have more respect for Skip Alston if he would admit what everyone knows; the programs discriminate, and then explain why he favors giving tax money, government jobs, and contracts to minorities at the exclusion of Whites. Actually, DEI is not about minorities; it is about Blacks. I have written for a long time that I believe Alston conscientiously and deliberately finds government jobs for Blacks or selects Blacks because they are Black. One exception may be Whites that show subservience to Alston such as Kay Cashion (at-large) and Brandon Gray-Hill (District 6)
Tax money should not be given to nonprofit groups because they already receive ample tax-free benefits, especially given by Commissioners who set property tax rates and have the power to raise taxes. Skip Alston is listed as co-chairman of the Woolworth Museum along with co-chair Deena Hayes. How can the $200k tax money going to the museum be accepted by property taxpayers of Guilford County?
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For Melvin “Mugabe” Alston, everything is about race. His race defines his personality, and his whole identity.
He agrees with Benjamin Disraeli…. “All is race. There is no other truth”.
Only affirmative action discriminates based on race. While some DEI programs did include affirmative action, most don’t. Most DEI programs are just about increasing equal access and processes for all communities by focusing on increasing awareness and tolerance of those around us from different ethnic backgrounds. DEI itself is a broad term and not by itself racially biased.
These days it is a just another fake bogeyman for conservatives to pretend that the struggles of middle America as the fault of racial issues versus the ongoing conservative agenda that continually shifts wealth from the middle class and working class to the wealthy.
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Cheers
The DEI policies and programs like minority women businesses were all designed to sidestep established federal discrimination laws. They should never have been in place to begin with. And NO you cannot interject racial quotas in hiring practices and contracts.
They’ll just figure out how to put lipstick on the same pigs and try to tell us they’re cows
Ruh-Roh…..
I miss the days of merit based pay and reward.I would be in favor of a task force,of sorts,to paint over all of the graffiti the city,that is like a cat urine to the eyes.To catch,and lock up these undesirables.
Merit based achievement is a White thing. So is politeness, speaking and writing the English language correctly, established norms and standards, and law and order. All of these attributes are considered signs of racism and White supremacy by Blacks.
Blacks and liberal Whites have changed our culture in visible ways, even Webster participates in the change. There is now something called African American English. An interesting facet of AAE is what is called “perfective done.” You have heard it spoken by Blacks; “I done finished my chores.”
I have no problem with Blacks speaking AAE. What I do have a problem with is any effort to make AAE acceptable as standard English because it is not. Think about how long Blacks have been in the US but have not assimilated enough to speak proper English.
If Blacks reject law and order and merit-based selection and advancement, go-ahead. But don’t call it racism because you reject these things out of jealousy and laziness, and an excuse is needed to explain failure.
Merit-based selection and advancement applies to Whites too.