The Community Corrections advisory board decided Tuesday how a significantly reduced grant would be divided among agencies that had made requests for funds.
The board had $86,414 to distribute of the $136,660 total the agencies had requested for Fiscal Year 2008. The $86,414 is the amount of the annual Juvenile Justice Authority Prevention Grant for that fiscal year. The entities that had requested JJA grant monies are: Family Solutions, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Pathways, Chase County Mentoring and Parents as Teachers in the Emporia and Southern Lyon County school districts.
After considerable discussion, the board decided it could no longer fund the Parents as Teachers program for either district. Members agreed that funding the program was the districts’ responsibility. The removal brought its suggested $10,000 allocation back into the reduced funding available.
“I think that taking that off the board and redistributing the money again, you get something more palatable,” said chairman Wes Jones of the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas.
The board found another $10,000 from Marc Goodman, who committed that amount from the diversion fund, over which he has discretion. The majority of the entities would not qualify to receive money from the diversion fund.
The allocation changes left $55,763 to be divided among Big Brothers Big Sisters, Pathways, and Chase County Mentors.
Chase County Mentors originally had requested $23,000 and board member J.C. McNee of Chase County asked that the organization receive the full amount. He said that Chase County juveniles receive little from other agencies, particularly BB/BS, though the county is included in the service area.
Board member Susan Moran said that her agency, SOS, and BB/BS have experienced difficulties in getting Chase County to participate in services.
The county has about 5 percent of the juvenile population, while Lyon County has about 95 percent.
“I feel like we need to be fair to Chase County, but it would drastically reduce the other two (agencies) on what we give them this year,” Moran said.
Because of the lack of evidence that BB/BS is serving Chase County, the agency’s allocation was reduced from the requested $32,000 to last year’s amount, $22,712.
Pathways had requested $21,009, about $67 less than it received the previous year. The board awarded it $21,000.
Chase County Mentors received $12,051 on a vote of 7-3.
“I believe Chase County Mentors is underfunded,” said Goodman; “therefore, I vote against that dollar” amount.
McNee said that he thought that the board had come to a consensus at the last meeting that there would be more funding for Mentors.
“I feel like we’ve been ripped,” McNee said.