Local non-profit groups are competing for the shrinking amount of federal funding at their disposal.
Each year, local agencies compete for Community Development Block Grants, which get money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. On Monday night, the city agency in Binghamton charged with giving out those grants listened to pitches from organizations looking for funds to use from September 2013 to August 2014. The grants have been helping these local organizations for years, but the funding has gotten increasingly smaller.
Community Development Agency Committee chairman Martin Doorey says that in the past year alone the amount of the grant has dropped from $2.2 million to $1.7 million. Currently, the committee doesn’t know how much money they will receive from the federal government, meaning they don’t know how the money will be divided among local groups. There will be another public hearing on May 13.
Doorey says he hopes the committee makes their final decisions by August.
