Forms for Funds: Council Ponders Community Group Guidelines

Community group office on the morning of Sept. 30 (Key News_Annali Hayward)

A motion calling for greater oversight in administering public funds appropriated to community groups failed to garner  support Tuesday. But it is set to return for discussion in October as Key Biscayne’s Village Council grapples with the best way to assess and allocate monies.

Groups such as the 4th of July Parade Committee, the Key Biscayne Piano Festival and the Key Biscayne Historical Society may face a different process in future budget cycles when asking for funding.

Councilmember Luis Lauredo’s suggestion at the Sept. 24 special meeting was withdrawn after robust discussion.

“The message has to go out – it has to be more formalized,” said Lauredo.

The wording called for groups to “apply through an objective criteria evaluation to be administered by the Village Manager.” It also introduced a new goal for groups to plan for “phasing out of Village funding within a reasonable time frame.”

Vice Mayor Allison McCormick was concerned becoming “overly bureaucratic” could diminish community engagement. She said many of the great ideas in the Village have come from members of the community having “the ability to come up here and talk to Council.”

“You might be great at your thing but stink at filling out forms,” said McCormick.  

Councilmember Brett Moss agreed, pointing out the issue at stake amounts to around 2.5 percent of the budget. “I think it may actually hurt what we’re all about.”

However, there was broad support for Council Member Ignacio Segurola to take the sentiment of the motion and turn it into a set of general guidelines instead, to be discussed at the second Council meeting in October.

“I don’t see us turning into the county or the city,” said Segurola. “It’s still going to be us – it’s just going to create a paper trail that we can follow.”

McCormick agreed that would be a good thing – but insisted it not be administered through the Manager’s office.

To that point, Lauredo explained, “You have to have it somewhere – we don’t have an office,” and that all decisions would still go through the Council. 

Mayor Mike Davey said this was his ninth year on the dais (following eight years as a Councilmember) and that “not a year has gone by when we haven’t said we need to do something about the community groups.”

Councilmember Lauredo said he “happily” withdrew his motion. But he seemed to refer to a June controversy surrounding Segurola’s comments about the Key Biscayne Community Foundation when he said the motion arose because “Segurola asked legitimate questions – and he got no answers.”

“This was an effort to institutionalize in a nice way, so we don’t have a repeat of this year,” he said, “for which I personally am embarrassed.”

McCormick thanked Lauredo for taking the initiative and Councilmember Ed London suggested making broad guidelines instead.

Segurola took on the feedback and asked for ideas to be emailed to him, including from the public.