Josephine County commissioners approve new economic development grant process, advisory committee

Josephine County commissioners on April 8 agreed to adopt a new process for allocating the county’s economic development funds, endorsing a staff recommendation to form a five-member advisory committee that will review applications and make recommendations to the board.

Director Nelson told the board she had sent a packet with a draft application, sample contracts, a scoring guide and a draft board order and recommended an advisory committee of five members that would submit bylaws for board approval. “I recommend that an advisory committee of 5 members be formed,” Director Nelson said, outlining a flow in which finance and legal review applications first, the advisory committee selects applicants for presentations, and the board approves awards at a weekly business session. Contracts would be reimbursement-based rather than paid upfront.

The plan calls for an annual award cycle in the fall so the board can see the full set of applications after the county budget is adopted. Director Nelson said the county receives about $600,000 a year for economic development and that current unencumbered funds total $511,000; the county expects an additional quarterly payment of roughly $150,000, bringing available funds for the first year to about $660,000.

Commissioners debated the advisory committee’s composition and how to prioritize infrastructure projects versus grants to individual businesses. One commissioner suggested specific seats — a finance or CPA representative, a workforce representative (college or schools), a large business owner, a small business owner and a rural business owner — to provide a mix of perspectives. “I think those are, and you can … give some sort of strong finance background,” the commissioner said when discussing qualifications.

Another commissioner urged the board to consider county-level infrastructure projects such as sewer or airport work that spread benefits across the community, noting that individual businesses may apply for grants even if they would have expanded absent county funds. “Infrastructure projects essentially benefit the whole community, whereas the business things benefit just a few individuals,” that commissioner said, arguing for preference in scoring for community-scale benefits.

The scoring guide offers preference points for projects that provide added community benefits — for example, improved services, infrastructure or quality of life — and one commissioner noted the guide awards 10 preference points for infrastructure-type benefits. Commissioners also emphasized the need for a clear conflict-of-interest policy so advisory members cannot use their positions to advance personal projects.

Board members agreed internal county departments (for example, the airport and fairgrounds) should use the same application process as outside applicants. The board also asked staff to bring existing applications forward for review under the new rubric; Director Nelson said some current requests range from a few thousand dollars to near $50,000 and that the board could choose whether to proceed with any high-dollar internal requests.

As a next step, Director Nelson will work with county legal staff to draft a board order establishing the advisory committee and to clarify application language. The board agreed to proceed with the proposed process without objection and to consider the board order in an upcoming weekly business session. The meeting adjourned at 10:40.

Notes: All quotes and funding figures reflect statements made during the April 8 board discussion and are attributed to the speaker labels used in the meeting transcript.