The first signal of trouble may have been the $100,000 request in additional funding for Pride of Kinston.
Executive Director Adrian King, representing the local economic development organization at the June 1 Kinston City Council meeting, advanced to the lectern following other local non-profit leaders who made budget requests for their organizations from the city.
Pride received $86,000 from the city for the 2014-2015 fiscal year, but King noted that for the first time in his 11 years, the city manager didn’t put a note on the annual funding request forms to not ask for more money than the previous year.
So, King said that after consultations with Pride members, the decision was made to go for an “embarrassing” total – $100,000 in addition to the recommended $86,000.
Among the projects Pride would pursue to justify that amount of money would be Queen Street beautification efforts involving smaller vegetation, planter replacement, new benches, underground power lines on South Queen Street, signage akin to that along Herritage Landing, hanging baskets, making Queen a two-lane street with angled parking and a special retail task force comprised of downtown merchants.
In regard to many of those projects, City Manager Tony Sears said it’s not known down the line where much of the funding for those Queen Street improvements will come from and plans are largely up in the air, which City Planner Adam Short corroborated.
However, much of the debate focused on the Kinston Enterprise Center.
“As many of you know, this has been a tense year for pride of Kinston – I guess you might call it that way – because of the enterprise center, which is one of our major projects,” King said. “And if I look back upon the records, since 2004, you’ll find it’s been cyclical.”
He said from 2004 to 2015, income at the center’s run $1.276 million, while expenses hit $1.558 million.
“Right now, it appears that we’re going to break even, as far as the building is concerned, and income to the building – we’ve had some new tenants show up this year, and we’ve done some extra marketing of the property, and so I believe we should be able to break even,” King said.
He added that the enterprise center is roughly a third of Pride’s budget, and went on to say that it’s city funding that help keeps the organization running, from paying staff to some of the utility bills and other administration costs regarding the building.
King noted that talks between Pride and the city in recent months have led to a general agreement to make payments to the city of $10,000 annually for the next 10 years, and Mayor B.J. Murphy asked that a memorandum of understanding be drawn up in regard to those terms for the next city council meeting.
City Councilman Sammy Aiken said a number of people have contacted him regarding both Pride’s influence on real estate rates regarding some properties and why the city continues to fund the organization despite a perceived problem regarding payments for the enterprise center.
“My main concern was initially the city bought the building for about $350,000, took out a loan to that effect, and we haven’t got a payment other than paying off the interest, in probably the last 10 years, and we’ve given you about $140,000-$150,000 a year, and you all supposed to pay us $28,000 a year for mortgage, and we’re not getting any mortgage payments,” Aiken said.
He continued, “So, those are the concerns the citizens asked me, ‘Why are we continuing to give them new money when they can’t pay for the building?’”
King disputed Aiken’s numbers, going over a series of transactions that took place back to before King began his position with Pride of Kinston, involving the federal government, the Committee of 100 and the city, including payment restructuring agreements.
Three other organizations’ leaders made their pitches beforehand, led by Sue Proctor of SAFE in Lenoir County, which exists to be a resource for domestic and sexual violence victims and works to prevent the reoccurrence of those violent acts.
“Again, this year we are asking for $9,500,” Proctor said. “These funds are specifically used to help us match other grants that we get that require a match – from the Governor’s Crime Commission … from the Department of Administration, from the North Carolina Council for Women, our domestic violence and sexual assault grants – those sums of money total about $200,000, which requires a 20 percent match, which is in the neighborhood of $40,000-$50,000 a year. And, your dollars help match that.”
She said that SAFE provided more than 800 people with various individual services in 2014, and during that year also provided more than 1,700 nights of shelter.
Kinston Community Council for the Arts Treasurer John McPhaul asked for a $5,000 increase from the city council – for a total of $30,000.
“(CCA Chairman) Steve (Jefferson) talked about this being our 50th anniversary – it’s an important year for us, obviously,” McPhaul said. “Over the last 10 years, through grant money, we’ve put about $1 million back into the economy here in the city and the county. And, most of the grants that we write are for programming, events that we have at the facility, educational events within our schools – very little of that goes to operational expenses ….”
Jefferson said the additional funds were needed to fill in the gap for facilities expenses like updates required over the past year to the CCA’s security and sprinkler systems.
Lenoir County SPCA President Jerry Henderson also said his organization is looking for some additional funding for the city, with part of the reason the SPCA now handles the same amount of pets from the city as the county.
“We are going to push you a little bit – I want you to think of three numbers as we go into it: $200,000, $50,000 and $30,000, and I’ll bring those up as we talk just a second here,” Henderson said. “The SPCA is different than a lot of the organizations that are coming up here asking for something.
“For 37 years, the SPCA has run a shelter that’s owned by the city and the county, and it’s the responsibility of the city and the county to take care of stray, misplaced, unwanted, and criminally charged dogs. And for 37 years we have done that with whatever money you gave us.”
He recognized the SPCA’s volunteers and those who contribute money to assist through gifts and the thrift store along with fundraisers, with an eye to cover about $50,000 of a state-mandated $200,000. And Henderson said while it would be nice for the SPCA to receive $50,000 from the city, it wasn’t expected, and asked for $30,000 – a $6,500 increase from the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
The Kinston City Council next meets Monday at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.
