Funds phase-out opposed

• By RICHARD BURGESS
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Jul 3, 2009 - Page: 1BA

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LAFAYETTE — Two city-parish council members are proposing that local government phase out funding for nonprofit groups.

The proposal, by council members William Theriot and Jared Bellard, is scheduled to be introduced at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The proposal is expected to draw opposition from the arts and social services communities, both of which turned out in force to oppose a similar proposal by Theriot during last year’s budget hearings.

That effort was voted down 7-2, with only Bellard and Theriot in support.

City-parish government gives supplemental funding each year to a list of nonprofit groups that includes Festival International de Louisiane, the Lafayette Council on Aging, the Acadiana Arts Council and the Family Violence Intervention Program.

The figure budgeted this fiscal year was $452,000, spread among 23 nonprofit groups.

Bellard and Theriot’s proposal is to phase out that funding over three years and shift the money to the police and fire departments.

“We have certain priorities we need to look at,” Theriot said. “We need to take care of the necessities first.”

The proposal, which is up for a final vote July 21, also stipulates that the gradually reduced nonprofit funding over the next three years go to the Community Foundation of Acadiana, a local charitable group that Theriot said would decide which nonprofits should receive the government funds.

He said the hope is that the Community Foundation, after three years, would be able to raise enough in private donations to continue to support many of the nonprofits that had received supplemental funding from local government.

The subject of eliminating city-parish funding for nonprofits, or at least changing the process for evaluating which nonprofits receive city-parish money, has arisen repeatedly during budget hearings in the past few years.

City-parish President Joey Durel has said he is generally opposed to having local government provide funds to nonprofits, but the line items have remained in the budget.

“Currently, at this time, I’m not sure we have reached a comfortable solution that would allow us to phase it out,” Councilman Brandon Shelvin said.