Contract Review Committee finalizes FY26 grant recommendations, pledges letters to applicants denied funding

The Contract Review Committee voted Friday to finalize preliminary fiscal year 2026 grant recommendations and to send formal letters to applicants that received no awards, committee members said.

Committee members said the panel recommended $133,006.30 in awards for substance-misuse applications, leaving about $44,000 of the originally available funds unspent because the town’s grant rules prevented reallocating certain money across categories. “We have awards for a hundred and $33,006.30, which leaves approximately $44,000 of the money that we had on the table,” Veronica, a member of the Contract Review Committee, said during the meeting.

Why it matters: The committee’s decisions determine how locally held settlement and earmarked funds will be spent on prevention and direct services across the island. Several small or new nonprofit applicants were assigned zero awards this round; committee members discussed outreach and next steps to avoid discouraging future applicants.

Members and staff said some applicants were ineligible or received no funding for specific reasons: the Boys and Girls Club request was identified as a capital expense and outside the CRC’s grant mission; one applicant, PRISM, lacked a documented 501(c)(3) certificate at the time of review; and three prevention-focused groups (variously named in discussion as…