news-record.com

GREENSBORO — After news that community groups scheduled to receive public money submitted incomplete applications to Guilford County, the county has provided additional paperwork for those groups and said that it had been filed all along.

On May 28, the News & Record requested copies of applications for funding from the following nonprofit groups: Malachi House, Carl Chavis YMCA, Hayes-Taylor YMCA, Nia Community Action Center, Joseph’s House, Atelier Art Gallery, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival and East Market Street Development Corp.

County Manager Brenda Jones Fox had recommended that those groups receive increased or new funding in her proposed 2009-10 budget.

Under county policy, applications from nonprofit groups wanting public money must include “tax-exempt documentation, current annual certified audit, management letter if applicable and board member roster.”

The code says that incomplete applications would not be considered.

On May 29, the county provided applications for all organizations except the Shakespeare Festival, which did not apply. On May 31, a report listed those groups that filed incomplete applications for county funding: East Market Street Development Corp., Joseph’s House and Hayes-Taylor YMCA.

On June 1, County Attorney Matt Mason told the News & Record that the county had the remainder of the documents required in the applications.

“Because your request sought only 'copies of applications’ for these groups, we did not provide additional materials submitted by applicants ... beyond the application itself except where the applicant attached those materials to the application,” Mason wrote in an e-mail June 1. Those materials were not marked to show the date that they had been received by the county.

Mason said Thursday that those materials weren’t first provided because of a miscommunication between him and a county employee who kept those records.

That same evening Guilford County commissioners passed a $585 million budget with money for all those groups and $20,000 for High Point nonprofit I Am Now, which did not apply.

Overall, that was an increase of $537,917 in new or additional funding for community groups in 2009-10.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com