County grant opportunities come with costs
Dates for a pair of upcoming candidate debates were just emailed to me by party chair Ramon Rodriguez and it made me think back to the last candidate debates two years ago in Presidio.
Despite a couple of candidates (who did not win their elections) not showing up to participate, it was an informative exercise with some common threads. One theme in particular was that several of the candidates for County Commissioner revealed that their plan consisted of “going out for more grants as often as possible”. That’s an easy sound byte and makes sense as a concept but in reality “going out for grants” is more complex than it would seem.
I had a very good meeting with Commissioner Buddy Knight, who took my place as Pct 4 commissioner, after his first meeting. He wanted to meet to get updates on the projects I have been working on, especially the courthouse elevator rebuild. His knees are bad, he can’t use the stairs, like so many others. I gave him info on the County Commissioners Court’s recent chasing of grant monies and relative lack of success.
Before I go further it’s important to give credit to two County departments that handle their own grants responsibly and add benefit to the County. The Sheriff’s Office chooses, applies and administers their own grants (with Commissioners Court approval) including executing all the paperwork. The County Airports Dept also does the same successfully. County employees who deserve special credit for management include Shanna Elmore (PCSO) and Chase Snodgrass (Airports).
As I see it, there are three basic parts in successfully executing a grant opportunity.
The first is identifying grants and determining if there is a need for what’s provided and if a realistic timeline to apply for the grant exists. If so, then an application can be made and staff can be ready for a potential project.
The second is determining who is going to run the grant. Right now I am the designated grant administrator for the TXDOT TA grant I wrote, applied for and won on behalf of the County. In order to be the admin once the grant was awarded (so we wouldn’t have to hire a firm-grant admin in this particular grant is unfunded) I had to travel to El Paso for two days to attend TXDOT Local Government Officer grant Admin training. I became certified to run the grant and I am doing that in this case. Currently no Commissioners nor the County Judge are running any grants. Yet they must be administered and that falls on our understaffed County Auditor department. This past budget cycle, right after the County Judge advocated for renewing our $48,000 per year with our grant writers, he also advocated and won, in a 3-2 vote, to not fund a position in the Auditor’s office to assist with timely audit completions and run grants.
The third part of a grant is the costs. This includes and type of required match (in-kind or cash), employee/staff time requirements to administer the grant, and the obligation to the County of any liabilities (audit finding risks, possible actual project liability). The County budget needs to contain line items for costs.
In this last budget cycle, as grants were being pushed by the Judge as a panacea for the County’s financial issues, nothing was budgeted for any costs associated with any grants, and no staffing was added in order to actually run any grants.
I’m all for grant opportunities when they make sense. One thing I learned while on Marfa City Council is that our law enforcement grants (which eventually hurt us do to paperwork compliance issues) nearly always came with “strings attached”- other obligations that cost us time and money and weren’t pertinent to the City’s Police mission. I’m wary of grants as a while for Presidio County until and unless the proper budgeting for staff and other resources is made in order to support responsible grant administration and process. I promise that as County Judge I will be sure that we are equipped to take advantage of and execute any grants that make sense for the County and provide value to the citizenry. At this point in time, however, the County is not equipped to do so.