McMinnville Aldermen approved a policy change regarding the city’s non-profit contributions.
The city had proposed a policy change in March to have a four percent ceiling of funding that would be provided to charitable organizations. City Accountant Samantha Moore said the new policy change would largely impact the community in years where the city’s budget faces hardships.
“The way the policy is right now is a total budget deficit,” Moore said. “Not an operating budget deficit, a total budgeted deficit. In that instance, there is no additional monies to fund any organization that does not have an agreement.”
Moore said funding for the Chamber of Commerce, the Upper Cumberland Human Resources Agency, the Upper Cumberland Development District, and the Magness Library would not be impacted by the policy this year, but could be impacted moving forward. Moore said with the approval of the policy change, the city’s finance committee will now send a letter to the charitable organizations to which the city donated to this fiscal year.
“Since that new policy is adopted tonight, we can go ahead and give them and give them notification next year,” Moore said. “This will be the policy and the procedure. Here are the changes, maybe even include the whole policy if you all would like to, and that way there is a full year to prepare.”
Vice Mayor Steve Harvey said the other option would have been without capital improvements, whether the city’s budget was balanced or not.
“The way it is right now it’s with capital improvements and capital expenditures,” Harvey said. “So the point is, there are going to be lots of times where we are not giving to nonprofits. We just want to be clear on that.”
