Skokie May Have to Revisit Grant Money Requests

During the Feb. 7 village board meeting, trustees approved dispensing more than . But there may be a snag with the final distribution as the money is tied up by the ongoing budget deliberations in Washington.

Skokie expects $550,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), based on the $554,000 received last year. However, with Republican lawmakers seeking a $60 billion cut in fiscal 2011 continued spending and the Obama administration threatening cuts in domestic spending for fiscal 2012, village officials wonder when and if the money will become available.

“I was hoping the major budget discussions would be about the fiscal '12 budget and I think they are," said Tom Thompson, Skokie's community development director. "But there is a movement afoot to cut the fiscal '11 budget.

“We assume by now they would have told to us to expect what was coming in if it wasn’t going to be similar to last year," he added. "But here we are in February, and they have not told us to expect anything differently.

"But now I am not so sure,” Thompson said.

The Obama administration has floated the idea of cutting $300 million from the community block grant program in fiscal 2012, which begins Oct. 1. The proposal has officials in Skokie and across the nation on pins and needles as they wait to see what happens.

“We really have to see what the number is before we can deal with it,” Thompson said. “We are always in touch with people at HUD. But they don’t know yet, so they don’t know what to tell us.”

Among the groups now waiting to see what will happen is PEER Services, which provides substance abuse, prevention and treatment counseling to about 1,200 teenagers and adults in Skokie and elsewhere in the area.  Skokie officials planned to provide PEER with $10,000 in grant money.

“I was very alarmed that the funding would be cut because they impact low-income people who need the services the most,” said Kate Mahoney, executive director of PEER.

Skokie’s budget year begins May 1, so officials hope to know by then what is the situation with the federal grants. An earlier key date is March 21, when the board conducts a public meeting on the action plan for the grants. If the village learns there will be less money to dispense, that will certainly be discussed at that meeting.

Thompson said in his 24 years of being Skokie’s point man in the process, he can recall times when funds have been rescinded due to federal action. So the current situation reinforces what he always tells the groups applying for funds, which may include leftover money from the previous year:

“We always stress--especially when we don’t know what our entitlement is--that this is an estimated budget,” Thompson said.

Among the other targeted recipients of the grant money is the Niles Township Food Pantry Foundation, which serves an average of 3,000 people monthly.  The foundation is scheduled to receive $5,300, which the pantry plans to use in purchasing a backup generator for its nine refrigeration units. 

Cynthia Carranza, director of the food pantry, said she was "very grateful" that the village would consider providing any amount of money.

Thompson said despite the last-minute complications, this was one of the smoothest years in the process since 1974, when the community block grant program was introduced.

The number of requests was slightly more than $650,000, Thompson said. However, when two groups failed to make their required pitch before the board of trustee in January, their requests for funding were tossed out.

It made the decisions on how much each recipient received that much easier, he explained. The dropouts also meant "we didn’t have to make the significant cuts that we often have to make,” the village community development director added.

Thompson notes that experience with the process helps the applicants. "They know how to make their requests reasonable so they are not disappointed,” he said.