For nonprofits that rely on municipal funds, times are a bit rugged.
In Dec. 2009, while tackling their budget, the Damariscotta Board of Selectmen essentially turned back the clock to a time when every year service providers had to collect signatures from registered voters in order to appear on the warrant at town meeting.
According to Damariscotta Town Manager Greg Zinser, “That decision was made in December to give providers ample time to get their petitions in. From our perspective, before we cut any municipal service, we were going to cut everything that was not a function of the municipality, and provider agencies are not a function of the municipality. I was told, everything was on the table.”
New Hope for Women is just one provider agency that finds itself scrambling to get petition signatures as the April 26, 5 p.m. deadline looms to get onto the town’s warrant.
“We’re trying to collect signatures at a time when people don’t expect it,” said New Hope for Women Development Director Glen E. Rainsley. “Many assume we are already on the warrant,”
As of this writing they won’t be unless 112 Damariscotta registered voters sign his petition. Rainsley may be correct when saying the community “assumes,” since the town in recent memory had automatically included nonprofit provider agencies on the warrant if they did not increase their funding request. No more.
Historically, provider agencies ask municipalities they serve for support. The list of agencies is familiar to voters: Healthy Kids, Coastal Transportation, New Hope for Women, Kno-Wal-Lin, Miles Health Care, CLC YMCA, Skidompha Library, and others. In 2009 the agencies combined to receive close to $38,000 from Damariscotta voters.
This year, however preparing the budget for town meeting the board excluded outside provider agencies from the budget process, rather than decrease the town’s salaries and benefits. The nonprofits aren’t cut off; they’ll just have to get community support through signatures to appear on the warrant.
“If they get their signatures, we have no choice, [but to put them on the warrant],” Zinser said. He also said the board is sending a message that, “this new fiscal year, we’re saying because it’s a very difficult year to begin with, before we start looking at [cutting] employees’ salaries and benefits we look at any reduction in true municipal service…provider agencies aren’t a municipal service.”
Zinser said through letters, the agencies learned of the board’s decision, which spelled out, “here is your recourse, and you have to go out to the voters, and get the number of signatures.”
“It’s getting them [the signatures] now, and having to explain to people why it is they are signing a petition, and it makes us look like we are new,” Rainsley said. “It takes an enormous amount of time for each contact, it really takes 3-4 minutes per person to tell them why we are here and what we do for Damariscotta.”
“They cut everybody; we’re not being singled out,” Rainsley said. He calls Damariscotta, “a pretty strong user” since there were 17 individual cases needing domestic abuse services.
Though Rainsley said he “understands and appreciates” the challenges faced by municipalities in the current economic climate, he finds it distressing that “in many cases towns seem to be making it difficult to get funded, and frankly, we don’t have the staff time to do this [get signatures].”
Rainsley believes New Hope For Women has shouldered a funding cut every year, since the nonprofit has asked for the same amount ($1155) with no increase requested. “We provide the same or more services,” he said.
According to Rainsley, New Hope For Women does not charge its users for services and support, and that includes legal services.
Rainsley worries about his chances of successfully getting the required signatures, and what would happen without community support.
“We have to get community support in order to keep our 501 (c)(3), and the rate of domestic violence is occasionally exacerbated by financial situations,” Rainsley said. He said the director of the Center for Disease Control called domestic violence a major health issue.
“It is an extremely frustrating time,” Rainsley said, “just horrible.”
“Yes,” said Zinser, “there’s some work to go along with it [the petition process], and then it will be put before the voters, and if the voters decide to go for it, it is the will of the people…”
