The Jacksonville City Council continues to grapple with how it will handle community funding requests and donations.
The council has received three funding requests over the last month – one from the Jacksonville Festival of Lights and requests from the Jacksonville Area Food Center and the Salvation Army for its Client’s Choice Food Pantry.
At the end of last month, Sarah Shellhammer, who chairs the Festival of Lights, asked the city for $10,000 to fund the month-long holiday light display at the Morgan County Fairgrounds. Shellhammer says that the display acts as a regional tourist attraction that brings business to the city’s retailers and gas stations.
Mayor Andy Ezard says that the city’s Finance Committee, and ultimately the city council, has been struggling with how to classify the requests and from which revenue stream the donations should be paid from: “We’re really trying to tackle each one that we feel are in the same category. The Festival of Lights is different than the food pantries in our eyes. Funding the food pantries is going to be a challenge. They are requesting more money – each organization. There is good conversation in the finance meeting about identifying a source for the revenue stream that we can take those donations out of, and it’s been identified as cannabis money from our dispensary, which that would qualify for something like that. I think that would be a very good approach for showing folks in the community that money is going to be put to good use.”
Ezard says the food bank requests will be on the agenda for the meeting at the end of the month. Ezard says that both organizations full requests might not be met, but he believes it will open the door to have them in the budget moving forward.
Ezard says that the upcoming opening of a craft grow facility at the former AC-Humko site will likely generate more cannabis tax revenue in the city’s coffers. Right now, he says the City Treasury doesn’t have a good idea of an average annual income for the fund. Currently, the city’s cannabis municipal use tax fund has a little over $23,000 while the municipal cannabis sales tax fund has $128,000. Ezard says that things could rapidly change, but the city council has to put a plan in place on how to use those funds moving forward.
Ezard says the other large request awaiting the council is whether or not the city will take over ownership of the Jacksonville Area Museum’s Old Post Office building: “With the money that they are asking for, they are also asking for a director helping with that fee. I don’t know exactly what goes along with the taking over of the building. I know about maintenance and insurance – things like that which we can figure out. We have not really sat down and put pen to paper on it. However, I know the museum folks are chomping at the bit to get something going about whether the city is formally adopting it or not – so they can go a different direction. I feel comfortable that the city is going to do something. I don’t know right off the bat if it’s going to be what they are requesting. I think there will be a lot of give and take, and also potential changes throughout the course of the years to come.”
Ezard says that the county government and the Village of South Jacksonville have not been brought into the discussions yet on the museum, but all facets are being explored.
The donation to the Festival of Lights passed by a vote of 6-1 last Monday night, with Ward 2 Alderwoman Lori Large-Oldenettel casting the lone vote against the donation. Oldenettel said on record that more defined parameters for donation requests need to be derived and that the city currently has no official plan in place to expend funds for donation requests.