AURORA | Executives of six local nonprofit agencies are worried they’ll have to cut services if the Aurora City Council decides to cut a portion of their 2013 funding and divert it to public safety equipment needs.
The proposal was discussed at a July 9 study session meeting and officials from the nonprofit agencies met in confidence on July 16 to talk about what a cut in funding would mean to their organizations.
City council members are expected to formally vote on the issue at a council meeting later this month.
Diana Goldberg, executive director of SungateKids, said the city doles out between $50,000 and $55,000 annually to the child advocacy organization that conducts forensic interviews.
Any cut in funding would be detrimental, she said.
“Right now our philosophy has been that we’ll never turn a child away, but if we lose funding there could always be a possibility that we would cut staff funding,” Goldberg said.
The organization currently has seven full-time employees and conducts about 700 interviews annually with children who have witnessed or been a part of violent crimes.
“We’re serving a lot of kids with a very limited staff as it is,” she said.
Before 2012, the city gave between $400,000 and $475,000 worth of “Nexus” funds annually to community support agencies with a nexus to law enforcement, according to Jason Batchelor, the city’s finance director.
Those agencies are: Arapahoe House, Comitis Crisis Center, SungateKids, Gateway Battered Women’s Services, Aurora Mental Health, and the Metro Community Provider Network.
The organizations receive varied amounts of funding from revenues the city collects from municipal traffic violations.
In 2011, the city received an extra influx of cash from the photo-red light program that went into the pot of available funding for Nexus agencies this year.
About $200,000 worth of extra money was split among the Nexus agencies as a result of the increase, bringing the total amount of money allocated to Nexus agencies this year to $650,000, Batchelor said.
Goldberg said many of the local nonprofit organizations used the extra cash to expand services.
“We all have different interests but one thing we can agree upon is that demand for services is up significantly,” she said. “We’re doing more, so to cut back those dollars would have a significantly negative impact on all the agencies.”
Batchelor projects that if no change is made to the funding available for Nexus agencies, the six agencies would be eligible for about $350,000 worth of extra money from photo-red light tickets, bringing the total amount available in 2013 to about $800,000.
The city’s proposal is to cut the $350,000 that would have otherwise gone to Nexus agencies, but still keep the remaining money available for them, bringing the total funding amount back to 2011 levels.
The city has a contract with the manufacturers of the photo-red light program until 2015, and the revenue generated from the tickets has been soaring.
Last year, about 46,000 tickets were issued for red-light runners caught on camera in Aurora, bringing in about $2.2 million in revenue. That’s up from about 8,740 tickets issued in 2010, amounting to only about $500,000.
But Councilwoman Melissa Miller, whose idea it was to divert some Nexus money to public safety equipment needs, said there’s no guarantee that the photo-red light program will continue generating lots of cash, especially if council members decide to not renew the contract in 2015.
Some council members, like Bob LeGare and Renie Peterson have already brought up the possibility of discontinuing the photo-red light program after the contract ends.
Miller said the extra cash brought in from photo-red light revenues should be considered one-time use funds.
“My concern is that nonprofit agencies are going to become very much dependent on these extra funds, and meanwhile, we have all these technology needs for the city,” Miller said.
If her plan is approved by council members, the $350,000 that would have otherwise gone to Nexus agencies could be used to buy a new fire truck, fire equipment, or software for the detention facility, Miller said.
The money could also be used to open a new courtroom to speed up the justice delivery system, she said. The money would not be used for purchasing cameras in the city’s plan to boost surveillance on the Colfax corridor, Miller said; funding for that proposal will come out of the city’s Technology Efficiency Fund.
“I think there’s a misperception out there, folks are concerned that Nexus funds would be taken away, but that’s not the case,” Miller said. “We ought to be using (the extra money) as one-time use funds, not funding operations for a nonprofit agency.”
Linda James, executive director of Gateway Battered Women’s Services, said a cut in funding would mean a possible reduction in services provided by the organization. Currently, the organization answers more than 5,000 calls made to their 24-hour crisis line and it also provides 24-hour emergency shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence.
“It’s no secret that the hard economic times have affected all the agencies, so we have had to adjust to those economic times and it’s been truly useful to be able to have increased support from our Nexus grants so we can continue to provide services in the way that we want to,” she said.
Gateway received $115,000 from Nexus funds this year, about $35,000 more than it received
in 2011.
Goldberg said she hopes the executives of the nonprofit organizations can share their opinions on the proposal before council votes on the issue.
“We don’t feel like they’re somehow disregarding the importance of our services,” Goldberg said. “We feel this process has moved a little too hastily and it would be our preference to slow it down and have more of a voice in it.”
Executives from the nonprofit organizations sent a letter to council members on July 18 expressing their concerns about a potential decrease in funding.
Many council members are supportive of Miller’s plan, but only to an extent.
Councilwoman Barb Cleland said she’s supportive of the proposal as long as the money could be used for a wide spectrum of public safety needs and not just police technology.
Councilwoman Molly Markert said she didn’t want to see the money go toward public safety equipment in only one area of the city.
LeGare said the nonprofit agencies should consider the 2012 increase in funding as a bonus, but not become reliant on that extra influx of cash in years ahead.
“I’m a strong supporter of Aurora making this investment in these agencies but I don’t want to see it grow to a level where they’re depending on us,” he said.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.
All monies should go to the general fund. If the city is REALLY serious about enforcing highway laws, then let’s have additional cameras instead of spending monies on police monitoring speeds along the streets.
Is it about safety or money? Isn’t it interesting how almost all the cameras are in the poorer districts in Aurora. When law enforcement becomes a for profit enterprise, public interests take a back seat to revenue generation.
These faulty red light cameras are merely another tax on the citizens that exchanges dangerous t-bone collisions with equally dangerous rear end collisions. We are no safer, but there is less money in our locally economy.
Raise time again?
OK…..LISTEN UP BONEHEADS…this is just a mechanism to raise money under the disguise of safety..now all people should resist the idea of even using those camera altogether (legalized thievery) so you don’t have to be to the point of them asking you who should get the money…this money is yours…..there should be a law against these blantant rip you off schemes using a machine….but now we have people that would see this story and decide in their head who the money should go too….totally programmed to be screwed and just accept it. THANK YOU SIR…..MAY I HAVE ANOTHER.