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Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission held a special meeting Wednesday to discuss how to redistribute grants.
“At the end of the last meeting, we were wondering how we would fund grants. (County Auditor) Alyssa (Schmucker) asked other counties what they do as far as these,” said Mark Skibowski, commission president, when starting the meeting.
This change came around following discussion from a March 11 meeting. During that meeting, Sandy Hatcher, with ML Community Impact Alliance, asked the commission if there was a way that the money could be given up front instead of waiting for all the receipts and invoices to come in.
Schmucker told the commission that they can make the “necessary rules for business and accomplishment of purposes and goals,” as according to the ordinance. There are stipulations and legal ramifications. Any commission member or any person who receives money to be knowingly used not permitted under the code would be committing a level 6 felony.
“One of the options is doing a 50/50. You would give 50% up front and after all the documentation is submitted by the nonprofit, or group hosting the event, then they would get the other half of the money. This will all be based on receipts on the first amount of money that they were given…,” said Schmucker.
Schmucker stated that this needed to be made clear that this would only affect changes in the tourism grant, not any of the sponsorship or publicity grants.
Skibowski stated that in speaking with commission member Kathy Ray, who was absent, she was not in support of giving the full 100% upfront. He noted that this came about after Freedom Fest asked for the grants. Skibowski noted that changing the rules one time for a group shows favoritism but instead should be changed for everyone.
“I’m concerned about granting a large sum of money to someone … but if that person gets charged with a level 6 felony, how do we get our money back?” asked Skibowski. “Going in the middle with the 50% makes the most sense to me.”
Matt Metzger, commission member, agreed that the 50/50 is reasonable. Lyle Schrock, commission vice president, brought up a conversation about giving the 50% to a vendor instead of the nonprofit. However, he agreed that for the smaller amounts it makes the most sense.
John Hall, commission treasurer, agreed that the 50/50 makes sense for the smaller amounts, but have the bigger amounts sign an “honesty bond” so if “they run off with the money, the bond company will go after them.”
Mike Loher, commission member, agreed with the 50% so the organization has the investment and not getting free money. Loher’s concern was as to why the commission would not give the 50% straight to the nonprofit, to which Schrock answered that his thought would be that if it is given to the vendor, that money would be spent without contention.
Chris Polk, commission member, asked for clarification on what their power was in this scenario, which Schmucker stated that it would be up to them to establish the boundaries that would happen if they were to go to a 50/50 grant process.
“Personally, I think we should stay as a reimbursement,” said Polk. “I think the 50/50 should be available as something we offer to groups if they really need it … but not giving the money to the vendor.”
The concern was then raised that if they change the wording to allow for 50/50, they will see a lot more requests for this kind of grant. Loher noted that this would help with tourism if they go to the 50/50.
“Say we use the $20,000 as what you granted. You approve $10,000. We’re not just going to write the requester a $10,000 check and hand it to them. They will have to provide what they’re doing, who they’re paying or something,” stated Schmucker. “We’re going to have to see a quote, commitment or something before we just give someone the money.”
Hall stated that he would like to see this all in writing before voting on anything. Skibowski noted that they would have to be clear that this would be for non-publicity grants and add the 50% reimbursement option. The motion was made to keep the reimbursable grant and to amend having the non-publicity grant be 50%. This was approved, and they would have more specific terms at the May meeting.
Hatcher asked the commission for a tourism sponsorship for the Freedom Fest that is taking place June 5-7. From the March meeting, they amended what they had originally asked for. Hatcher asked for $89,250.
“We took out the $15,000 for the asphalt for the fairgrounds … We’re going with the $15,000 for advertisement to expand our billboard to bring in more people. We’re adding South Bend and Fort Wayne radio station advertisements, too,” said Hatcher.
Skibowski noted that on the updated expense sheet that they were asking for $15,000 advertisement, $55,000 for entertainment, $13,000 for production and $6,250 for crew accommodation catering and hospitality. He also asked that with the talent, they were ballparking as far as entertainment goes, since there are no specifics in the notes.
Hatcher noted that the figures are at the high end of what they were asking and that they were not to exceed those numbers. Skibowski noted that this is a large amount of money to keep track of and asked how they planned to track all the people who were coming, which Hatcher stated that Cori Humes with the Convention Visitors Bureau would be helping by using Placer.AI.
“We don’t know who the artists are yet, do we?” asked Metzger.
“We’ve got it narrowed down; we’re just waiting until we know what happens here,” said Loher, who is a part of ML Community Impact Alliance Inc.
Schrock said that it’s a lot of money they are putting on the line, which is why there is so much discussion and trepidation with agreeing to this amount. Loher noted that since he was the county contact for the event, that the state was supposed to give them funding for the event. Loher just heard and was able to fill out the application on April 17.
Metzger noted that the concert is a big draw and asked if they were going to make the concert a free event, which Hatcher noted that there would be staggered seating prices so they could recoup some of the funds, which will go to help nonprofit organizations who have helped them along the way with this project.
Skibowski noted that Ray had conveyed a lot of the same concerns as the rest of the commission. He noted that the group for Freedom Fest are people in the community who want to make it the best event possible and that they have the County Council’s backing. Hall motioned to grant the 50%, equaling out to $44,625.
Schrock noted that the timing of everything is still the biggest hangup for him. Metzger asked if they could put a stipulation that they would need to know the artist by a certain date to give the 50%, which the commission agreed to. Hatcher asked if they could put it out to May 10, which Skibowski noted would be less than a month for advertising and not feasible.
The commission agreed to grant 50%, with the caveat that ML Community Impact Alliance had to have a signed contract with an artist by Thursday, April 30.
In other business, Chris Morehouse asked the commission for publicity and tourism sponsorships for the Mystery 5K. She noted that the race would be adding a race timer, an American 250 medal for finishers and signage so racers do not get lost during the race. Altogether, she asked for $1,500.
Morehouse noted that in the past, they have had 34 racers, with approximately 10 being from out-of-county. This would also be the first year for charging each racer $10 to participate, which will hopefully allow a sustainable income for future years. The commission approved this grant.
Skibowski noted that they would have this spelled out in May but keep all the receipts for the tourism part of the grant.
For the treasurer’s report, it was reported that they were up $25,000 from over a year ago. For the rest of the year, they are looking at roughly $90,000.
Skibowski noted that they are receiving 50% of their funds from innkeepers tax. Hall asked about the funds for the Shrine Building, which Schmucker noted that they had received receipts, but there were questions on some of the receipts. After the questions were addressed, it would be fully reimbursed.
The budget meeting for KCCRVC is set to happen on Wednesday, July 8.
The next meeting will be at 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 13 in the Old Courtroom where they will have the grant application updated.
