Funding for Nonprofit Agencies Faces New Challenge

BY JANIE ROSMAN

The county has altered its method of funding nonprofits this year.

“We have revamped the process of funding sent to nonprofits with their input,” Rockland County Attorney Thomas E. Humbach explained. 

Nearly 100 nonprofits in the county participated in meetings and discussions since late February with county Director of Communications Scott Salotto as spokesperson. Instead of paying all agencies in the same fashion, Humbach said the legislature can spend money directly on purposes authorizes by NYS County Law 224 from museums to music to child cruelty prevention by passing a resolution.

“We are working to see that all agencies get money,” he said. “The objective is to get the money from the county to those agencies that need funding” whether the money is authorized directly or the agency needs to apply through a county department.

Humbach said each agency will be considered individually.

“We said to each, ‘Tell us what you want to do and the scope of your services and the county will look at these.’ If we can fit it into a category, the legislature will fund it. If the scope can’t be funded directly but can (be funded) through another branch of county government like Social Services or Office For the Aging, we’ll do it.

Humbach said the county is “hoping to never hit an agency that can’t be funded. We don’t know all the answers yet.”

The county executive had sought to reduce funding to nonprofit contract agencies in last year’s budget but was rebuffed by the legislature 15-2.

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