Shown from the left, City-County Athletic Complex Director Mike Hagy, Board President Brandon Keaffaber and board members Jo Paczkowski and Jason Brown talk to the Warsaw Common Council Monday night about future funding from the city to the CCAC. Photo by David Slone.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — While the Warsaw Common Council is looking at changing its direction in funding for nonprofits, representatives of the City-County Athletic Complex approached them Monday night about reconsidering or delaying an end to the city’s annual donation to the CCAC.

Warsaw Community Economic and Development Director Jeremy Skinner even offered his support to the CCAC’s cause toward the end of the council’s meeting, saying, “We had three hotels built in the last five years. Those three hotels pay roughly real close to $300,000 in property taxes a year. Those hotels are being built by the CCAC. That’s why they built them. Just keep that in mind. So, when you say self-sufficient, self-sufficient can have a lot of different meanings. They bring in a lot of revenue into the city, not just in innkeepers’ tax, but also in taxes those hotels pay.”

Mayor Joe Thallemer brought the nonprofit funding discussion up Monday night under unfinished business. The council had reviewed a draft of a revised application for funding for nonprofits for 2024 at their May 1 meeting and discussed it then.

A copy of the “call for proposals to provide specific services (not-for-profit entities)” states that contracts that meet specific service needs for the city and deliver measurable benefits to “our taxpayers is the focus of our not-for-profit collaborations.”

Contracts with the city will be considered for programs that meet the specific needs of the city, and those are listed as public transportation services, animal control services, environmental protection of local lakes and streams, assistance for victims of domestic violence, administration and support of rental assistance programs and critical repairs for housing deemed affordable, and support of Warsaw Main Street programs.

The council members did not offer any comments on the funding priorities for 2024 Monday night when Thallemer asked if they had anything else to say, but CCAC board member Jo Paczkowski took to the podium to make a few.

She said that as a city resident she applauded the city’s efforts to re-evaluate the parameters, but as a CCAC board member her concern was, “You’re looking at changing it today and adopting it for June 1. So, the 11 groups that got used to the money, that’s just a natural reaction, that doesn’t give us a lot of time to implement a new strategy for our budget to make up those funds. And as you look at the list, which amounted to $125,000 last year, some as small as $3,000, but each budget for each nonprofit, that can have a huge impact. So for us, $20,000, that’s huge.”

She said she talked to other nonprofits who weren’t aware of the city’s change in direction and thought the city could have had some dialogue with the nonprofits first.

Paczkowski asked that instead of the city implementing the new application as of June 1 this year, could it wait until 2024? That would give the nonprofits a chance to make some budgetary changes and come up with a new fundraising activity, which takes time.

Thallemer said, “One thing we had to try to step this down a bit was one-time (American Rescue Plan Act) funding for not-for-profits this year. … A grant if you will … but we have not had a chance to finalize our way to do it. But the discussion was that those funds were clearly available, especially for those that have had some difficulties climbing out of the hole that the pandemic created.”

He said the council were the ones that allocated the funds.

City attorney Scott Reust asked Paczkowski to clarify what she meant by a June 1 date. Paczkowski said the new applications would be implemented June 1 and be due by June 30. Reust said if CCAC was funded for 2023, that’s not changing; the new applications are for the 2024 budget.

Paczkowski said they could say there’s a lot of lead time, but when you’re dealing with coming up with a funding activity and all the planning and “all of that,” it takes time.

Councilman Mike Klondaris said the Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission recently increased their contribution to the CCAC and that would replace what the city would have done. Paczkowski said that was “one way of looking at that,” but she reminded him that’s it called the City County Athletic Complex and the city appoints two people to its board of directors.

She reminded the council that the CCAC was started by Warsaw Mayor Jeff Plank and the city held the lease for the property until a few years ago.

“The reality is, it was always meant to be an economic resource for the city, and it is. The (convention and visitors) bureau will tell you this: 80-85% of the hotel rooms rented in the summer are because of the CCAC. So that means people are spending their money here for restaurants and gas. They’re spending the weekend. So it is more than just a sports complex for the thousand kids – just kids – who come through the program. It doesn’t include all the people that come in on weekends from several states around here – very far for some of them – for the tournaments. So it’s not just for youth,” she said.

For the local children involved in activities at CCAC, she said they’re off the streets, learning good things from their mentors and the CCAC certainly wants to keep that going.

Jason Brown, CCAC board member who was appointed by the city, said that while the CCAC has its flaws – it’s an old facility – and youth sports are not the most profitable, “But if we lose this as a community, you’re losing … something for kids to do. We should not be looking at removing funds from this.”

He argued that the city should not pull funding from an organization that gives kids good experiences.

Paczkowski said about 250,000 people went through the CCAC gate last year. While last year the CCAC talked with the YMCA about possibly merging, she said the reason they didn’t want to go that way was  because the YMCA couldn’t promise some of the tournaments would continue.

Mike Hagy, CCAC director for the last 16 months, said, “I know we provide, for the weekend events, that is 16-17% of the innkeepers’ tax income. So you mention we get $20,000 extra from them, we pay into that. To me, we’re getting pennies on the dollar. As much money as we bring in to them, we’re getting pennies.”

He talked about the new leagues they created this year for kids, especially Warsaw’s children, and that they do their part to be a part of the city.

Councilwoman Diane Quance talked about previous discussion about the CCAC becoming self-sustaining at some point. Brandon Keaffaber, CCAC board president, said they’re trying to get to that point, but there’s continously something that needs improved or worked on.

Thallemer said there certainly will be nonprofits that won’t fit into the categories they discussed for next year. They all have compelling stories.

“This is not easy to sit up here and make these kind of decisions. We kind of went back to areas that specific services that are provided to the city in contract form that we can not provide for ourselves that we decided to utilize those funds for. It’s certainly not easy, and we will certainly take your discussion tonight into consideration,” he said.

Later asked by Paczkowski if the new forms are still going into effect on June 1, Thallemer said the council didn’t need to adopt anything. “The council, by their actions of allocating those funds during the  appropriation process, is how they will vote,” he said.

Quance said that will be during the council’s budget hearings this summer.

Thallemer confirmed the new application is taking effect June 1.