The Haines Borough Government Affairs and Services (GAS) Committee is again considering a reform to the borough’s nonprofit funding process following two years of requests from groups for public funding without a formal application process.

“What I would love to see is getting away from this Oliver Twist thing that we saw last year, where nonprofit organizations come forward with their hands out and say, ‘More porridge, please,’” said committee chair Cheryl Stickler at a Tuesday meeting. “It was really hard to track how much money overall we were spending.”

Committee members on Tuesday discussed devising a more organized process involving a formal application with a strict deadline in October. The idea would be to return to a system that the borough used prior to the pandemic, when the assembly allocated a fixed sum of money in the budget for nonprofits, then solicited applications from organizations and determined how specifically to distribute funding.

The questions of whether, how and how much the borough should fund nonprofits has long been subject to debate among residents and borough officials.

Nonprofit representatives used to request money by making public appeals directly to the assembly during the budget process, committee member Debra Schnabel said. Then the assembly shifted to a system where it allocated money to nonprofits as a single budget item and decided how to distribute funds in the fall. But in 2019 the borough did away with its formal application process, said borough chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart.

In fiscal year 2021, the assembly requested applications from nonprofits and small businesses for CARES Act funding. Last year, nonprofits submitted requests for borough funding during the spring budget cycle.

The GAS Committee rejected a proposal last summer to include individual nonprofits as perennial budget line items, citing a projected loss of revenue during the pandemic, but the assembly ultimately approved funding a handful of organizations.

GAS Committee member Debra Schnabel on Tuesday proposed that the assembly simply allocate funds to the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation (CVCF), which already administers donations to a range of local nonprofits.

The Chilkat Valley Community Foundation has years of experience receiving and reviewing grant applications, distributing funds and following up with grantees, Schnabel said, adding that the foundation’s “streamlined” system would relieve borough staff and assembly members of administrative work and time.

Committee member Stickler said she agreed that going through CVCF would make the process more efficient, but she questioned whether it would be appropriate for the borough to relinquish control to a private foundation over decisions about how to distribute taxpayer money. “If public monies are being spent, I think we are accountable to make sure that they’re spent as wisely as in our power to do so,” Stickler said.

Haines Borough Mayor Douglas Olerud said the assembly’s purpose in funding nonprofits is different from CVCF’s and has more of an economic component, not just community service. He said he thinks it’s the assembly’s job to direct funding to nonprofits, not to have someone else do it for them.

Sierra Jimenez said she has seen the same conversation play out in communities across the region and believes distributing funds through a community foundation, as the City and Borough of Juneau does, is the most effective model. In other communities, like Sitka and Ketchikan, which decided not to go through community foundations, she described a “feeding trough” where nonprofits have to beg for money from the assembly.

George Campbell voiced a different perspective, saying the borough should focus time and public money on critical needs, like road repairs, and shouldn’t set up the expectation that nonprofits will receive taxpayer funding. “You need to focus your budget on fixing our infrastructure and running the borough, and let us, the people, do our own giving to nonprofits,” Campbell said.

The assembly allocated funding this fiscal year to Becky’s Place, the Haines Avalanche Center, the Haines Economic Development Corporation, Haines Chamber of Commerce and the Southeast Alaska State Fair. The borough also has a contract for services with HARK.

Fourteen nonprofits requested coronavirus relief funding from the borough last year.

Committee members decided to continue the discussion and make a recommendation at their next meeting on April 5.