Friday, March 28, 2008
Editorial: Nonprofit agencies can't live on pork
Lawmakers need to find a more reliable way to fund nonstate cultural and social service agencies.
From the RoundTable blog
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Virginia's delegates and senators in the General Assembly regularly serve up the bacon. This year, the budget looks a little leaner, though those in key budget-writing positions still managed to bring home some pork.
The $77 billion budget that awaits Gov. Tim Kaine's signature slashed special funding whose real purpose is boosting lawmakers' re-election chances. Politicos call it "grants to nonstate entities." The rest of us call it pork.
Not all pork is bad, of course. It's the method of distribution that rankles, not the money itself.
Some worthy entities -- such as the Mariners' Museum and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra -- will get nothing from the state next year.
Another three dozen similarly worthy entities are slated to share $5.8 million in 2010.
Considering how tight the state budget was this year, why did some programs get funding while others did not?
It helps to have representation on the House and Senate budget committees. For example, the Newport News-based Patient Advocate Foundation landed $500,000 through a budget amendment. Del. Phil Hamilton represents Newport News. He's co-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and sits on the foundation's board of directors.
Localities have long asked the state for better ways to fund the arts and assist nonprofit social service agencies.
Roanoke and other cities included several ideas for more sustainable funding, both state and local, on their legislative agendas.
Those ideas, as usual, went nowhere.
When the budget is flush, lawmakers love to take credit for state contributions to these agencies.
When the budget is tight, the money isn't available to think about a stable funding source.
This makes it hard for these cultural and social agencies to budget and plan, or even raise money from elsewhere.
Lawmakers need to give up their taste for bacon. If these agencies deserve state support, that support should be consistent and based on objective criteria, not a lawmaker's service on an appropriations committee.
