CHANNEL 44 NEWS- Evansville Non-Profit Groups React To Funding Cuts Made By City Council

“When we were doing our budget this year we kind of cut back on what we were expecting to get from the city,” said Keep Evansville Beautiful Executive Director Julie Welch.

In the 2016 budget, funding to several non-profit groups was cut by 50 percent. This year, council voted 5-4 to cut their funding again by another 50 percent.

“We’re not in the grand giving business for not-for-profits, it’s just not fair,” said City Council Vice President Jonathan Weaver. “I’m telling you, that your tax dollars that you pay on your property are going to go to these specific charities and I don’t think that’s fair.”

Keep Evansville Beautiful applied for $10,000 in funding this year. Welch was expecting to receive about half of that but will now only receive $3,000.

“We plan to just try to cut back some of our expenses,” said Welch. “And hopefully some of our donors, we have wonderful donors, hopefully our donors will help us a little bit more during our annual campaign. That’s going to start in November.”

The Vanderburgh Humane Society is another one of the not-for-profit groups set to see a cut in funding. Along with Keep Evansville Beautiful VHS didn’t figure in the grant they were expecting to receive from the city into their budget.

In years past, VHS received a $5,000 grant from the city’s recreational fund. Last year it was cut to $2,500.

This year they anticipated receiving a $3,000 grant but with more cuts, they’ll only be getting $1,500.

VHS Executive Director Kendall Paul says while it’s disappointing, in the grand scheme of their yearly $1.2 million dollar budget, it won’t have a huge impact on them.

“It all comes down to people in the community making this place,” said Paul. “And most other non-profits in this community work.”

And in a city like Evansville, both Welch and Paul believe as city council continues to cut money available to non-profits, they’ll still be able to offer their services to the community.

“Evansville is one of the generous places I’ve ever seen,” said Welch. “The people here are so benevolent for non profits and really help non profits a lot here. So I feel like when donors of these non profits find out these non profits were cut hopefully they’ll step up to the plate for them”

That statistic has local leaders joining with Youth First to address the problem through a town hall.

It took place Tuesday night in Evansville.

The event, part of the Talk, They Hear You Campaign, aims to open a dialog between parents and their children on the consequences of underage drinking.

The goal of the campaign is to reduce underage drinking among youth ages 9 to 15.

It has been a few years since Youth First held a town hall type event, but they plan to hold more in the future.