Assembly Considers Change to FY18 Nonprofit Funding Process

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Nonprofit funding is one of three items on tonight’s Kodiak Island Borough Assembly work session agenda, and the assembly will consider a change in the borough’s nonprofit granting process. The assembly is at the beginning of its fiscal year 2017 grant discussion, and has not yet released grant applications, but it is thinking in the long-term.

It’s looking at a possible partnership with the Kodiak Community Foundation, which raises money for nonprofits in the Kodiak Archipelago and bestows grant upon application.

According to Borough Manager Michael Powers, the borough is considering working with the Kodiak Community Foundation on the nonprofit funding procedure for the fiscal year 2018 and onward.

“Once the borough decides how much money they’re gonna allocate, they hand over the responsibility of picking which ones are gonna receive the money, and so that lightens their work load and takes that decision off their plate and puts it someplace else.”

Powers says staff would like to pursue a simpler option for the “vetting process.”

“In years past, the borough has spent a lot of time on how to fund the nonprofits and, quite frankly, the borough has a number of tasks before them and a number of important items that come before them, and trying to give this the due consideration that it requires can become somewhat problematic.”

He says the borough would have pursued the option for fiscal year 2017, but the Foundation wasn’t in the position to provide that service this year.

The assembly will weigh-in on the idea at its work session tonight. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Borough Conference room.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Kodiak Public Broadcasting Corporation, which owns KMXT, is a recipient of borough funding.