Government Accountability Project Asheville

The Community Reparations Commission will hold their next meeting TONIGHT, Monday, February 20th from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The meeting is being held at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center Banquet Hall at 87 Haywood Street in Asheville. The public is welcome to attend the entire session. Meeting materials are available before here. The meeting will be recorded and streamed here.

The Buncombe County Commission meets tomorrow, Tuesday, February 21st, 2022 at 5 pm. You can attend the meeting at 200 College Street, Suite 326 in downtown Asheville. You can watch the meeting online at the County’s facebook page. The full agenda is here.

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PROBLEMATIC

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CONCERNS

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EMAIL TEMPLATES

Use our prepared email templates to take action on this week’s items.

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Things of concern, more information needed

Buncombe County Commission Agenda: Presentation – Financial Quarterly Report – FY23 Second Quarter (report); New Business – Budget Amendment for Appropriation to Capital Fund Per Policy (ordinance)

The presentation includes a report-back on the 2022-2023 budget at the halfway point in the fiscal year: revenues are 6.7% over budget and expenditures are 3.9% under budget. In a related New Business item, $1.8 million is being shifted from the General Fund Balance to the County Capital Projects Fund. This is in accordance with a policy to shift “any unreserved, undesignated fund balance above 20%.”

We’re intrigued by the fact that the County has significantly more money available than projected in the last budget cycle, and curious how that surplus will be allocated. We believe this could be an opportunity to strengthen the county’s financial support for our community’s Reparations process. Last year, the County pledged $500,000 per year for the Reparations process, which was .13% of their annual general fund budget (the City pledged .3% of their budget). Now that additional funds are available, we wonder whether County Commissioners and Staff are willing to talk with the Community Reparations Commission about whether some of this unexpected surplus could better support the Reparations Commission’s funding needs this year.

Things to do

We encourage you to reach out to the Buncombe County Commissioners and Staff and ask them to consult with the members of the Community Reparations Commission about whether some of their surplus could support their funding priorities for this year. You can (a) use our template link to open up an email to adapt, (b) copy and paste the content below, or (c) write your own message and use the email addresses listed below.

EMAIL TEMPLATE TEXT

You can open this email in your own email program by clicking here. To proceed manually, you can copy and paste the text below into an email and then address it to the County Commission and key Staff members as listed below.

Send to: brownie.newman@buncombecounty.org, jasmine.beach-ferrara@buncombecounty.org, alfred.whitesides@buncombecounty.org, amanda.edwards@buncombecounty.org, terri.wells@buncombecounty.org, martin.moore@buncombecounty.org, parker.sloan@buncombecounty.org

CC: Avril.Pinder@buncombecounty.org, Dakisha.Wesley@buncombecounty.org

Subject: Will You Discuss Surplus with Reparations Commission?

Dear County Commissioners and Staff,

I saw in your February 21st Meeting Agenda that the County has amassed a significant budget surplus, and was wondering whether the Community Reparations Commission’s funding needs for the coming year could be better supported by the County with some of these funds. If you haven’t already scheduled a meeting with them about this, would you be willing to talk to the Reparations Commission to see if their forthcoming recommendations (to be presented later this year) could benefit from additional funding from this surplus?

Thanks for your leadership,