Haines Animal Rescue Kennel officials will not accept $14,000 allocated to the nonprofit by the Haines Borough Assembly last week, citing an earlier position that they weren’t interested in siphoning that money from the “community chest.”
The assembly last week approved giving $18,063 to local nonprofits from the borough’s community chest, a pot of money from the general fund set aside during the budget cycle for future distribution to nonprofits through an application process.
There would have been $14,000 more available for those nonprofits had the assembly not allocated that money to HARK during the budget process as a response to manager David Sosa’s proposal to slash HARK’s contract budget.
So, instead of vying for the original $32,500 set aside in the community chest, six nonprofits requesting a total of $36,400 had to vie for about $18,000.
That isn’t what HARK wanted, said executive director Tracy Mikowski. “We felt that that wasn’t appropriate and the community chest money should be doled out the way that it was intended,” she said. “We felt that would hurt a lot of nonprofits by taking that big chunk of change.”
Mikowski said she was surprised to learn the $14,000 hadn’t been returned to the community chest as requested during HARK’s contract negotiations with the borough.
“We were very specific that we did not want to use that community chest money,” she said.
HARK board president Tara Bicknell was also confused, as the board sent a letter to the assembly in September stating they didn’t feel it was appropriate for community chest funds to go toward the HARK contract, which is for animal control services.
“That money was designated for the contract duties, which is enforcement of animal control ordinances, and it was expressed by members of the community and our membership and at HARK, too, that we didn’t feel money from the community chest should be used to enforce borough code,” Bicknell said.
Again, Bicknell said this was repeatedly made clear during negotiations. That was why the HARK contract ended up much lower than last year, so community chest funds wouldn’t have to be used toward it, she said.
Last week, assembly members lamented the tough situation the previous HARK allocation put them in when Chilkat Valley Preschool and Takshanuk Watershed Council representatives – who received 30 and 35 percent of their funding requests, respectively – asked for more money. But manager Sosa didn’t say anything about HARK refusing the $14,000.
Sosa wrote to the assembly after the meeting to tell them HARK had sent a letter refusing the funds.
“They had mentioned this in conversation with the manager but had not taken any formal action until this time,” Sosa said.
Mikowski said no one told her HARK had to take formal action. “We weren’t aware we specifically needed to give them something else. We thought that we were clear on that point,” she said.
Sosa said the $14,000 will be on the assembly’s next agenda. He is recommending another committee be convened to allocate the funds.
Chilkat Valley Preschool president Alissa Henry said she was glad to hear of the freed-up money. The preschool had requested $13,000, but received $3,900.
“That (money) would help out the nonprofits a lot,” Henry said. “It would be great to get some more money from the borough. It would definitely help us with our fundraising goals.”