Laredo council preliminarily approves nonprofit funding recommendations, amends several awards; Border Olympics allocation budgeted pending paperwork

City Council approved the civic partnership committee's recommended allocations for third-party nonprofit funding on July 1, adopting the committee's competitive scoring and a new cap on general-fund grants while amending a handful of agency awards.

The council heard a presentation from Tina Martinez, identified in the meeting as the community development/director for the city, who said the civic partnership and engagement advisory committee reviewed 25 general-fund applications seeking roughly $898,000 and recommended a total roughly in the low $337,000 range. Martinez told the council the committee instituted a $25,000 per-application cap for general-fund awards and evaluated applications on audits, tax filings, a needs statement and project-specific budgets.

Council members repeatedly said the reductions were large and asked whether the committee's scoring and the new cap gave nonprofits adequate time to adapt. Martinez and committee members said this fiscal year was the first with the cap, that the committee met multiple times and spent many hours reviewing applications, and that the committee recommended three-year funding cycles with a match requirement focused on volunteer services and partnership benefits.

Council amended several committee recommendations during discussion and voted on the…