People
D.C. Council hardens line on handouts to nonprofits
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
January 6, 2009
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| Nonprofits like the D.C. Central Kitchen, above, could be hit hard by new rules restricting city funds for nonprofits. (Examiner File) |
“This is a way for us to wean ourselves off this work around [of the contracting and procurement process],” said at-large Councilman David Catania, chairman of the health committee. “And it might be tough medicine, to be honest.”
Approved Friday during the council’s organizational meeting, the rules limit all future earmarks to $250,000, or $1 million for capital projects. They prohibit nonprofits, starting in fiscal 2011, from garnering grants in consecutive years. And they require recipients to undergo audits and submit documentation to prove they have paid their taxes and are spending the money as advertised.
The rules will spur competition for meager taxpayer dollars, open the door for nonprofits that have been locked out in past years, and protect the grant system from fraud, said Council Chairman Vincent Gray.
“We leave ourselves highly vulnerable, it seems to me, as an institution without beginning to place some guideposts around it,” Gray said.
But critics said the new rules could devastate some nonprofits that have come to rely on earmarks for their annual operations. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh warned the council should not limit its authority to keep certain organizations, ones that do critical work, afloat. Several groups “would be in dire trouble if they did not receive a grant the following year,” said Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans.
The council distributed $56 million to 125 grantees as part of the fiscal 2009 budget, including a controversial $10 million handout to Ford’s Theatre, a federally owned facility.
The $250,000 received by the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in 2009 was one-third of the group’s operating budget, said Brenda Rhodes Miller, the campaign’s executive director. The Capital Breast Care Center collected $500,000 this year, which “goes directly into providing a safety net for women who are at a high risk for breast cancer in the city,” said Beth Beck, the center’s executive director.
Losing that money, both women said, would drastically affect their capacities to provide service.
Michael Curtin Jr., chief executive officer of the D.C. Central Kitchen, said the nonprofit tries “never to rely on any funding that we get from any source.” But the council, he said, should be wary of making rules that might harm those groups that do the best work.
