In this season of giving, the Paradise Valley Town Council has started looking at ways to change how it distributes money to community services groups.
At its Dec. 11 work session, council members heard a plan from the town manager’s office to call for a request for proposals from groups seeking money from the community services fund.
For this fiscal year, the council has allocated $265,000 to community services but it still has to approve which groups will receive the funds as well as how much.
At first glance, the fund looks like to has increased sharply in the last few years, but the town actually began combining funds for homelessness with the general community services fund.
For the past two fiscal years, the council earmarked $200,000 to the Maricopa Association of Governments homeless initiatives. If council approves the same amount to MAG this fiscal year, that will leave $65,000 still up for grabs.
From fiscal year 2015 to 2020, the town relied solely on requests for proposals to hand out the community services funds. From 2021 to the present, the town moved to a needs-based assessment.
During the session, council members advocated a hybrid process to allocate the remaining funds that includes requests for proposals and a needs assessment.
Under the proposal, two members of the council would be chosen by Mayor Mark Stanton to assist the town manager’s office in going over applications. The recommendations would then go to the full council for final approval.
The town has been supporting community service agencies since 1985, with 40 different agencies receiving funding over the years. Since fiscal year 2021, the town has shown steady support for MAG homeless initiatives, Duet Partners in Aging and Central Arizona Shelter Services.
Other community services groups that have received town funds in recent years include Arizona Friends of Foster Children, Voices for CASA Children, Scottsdale Unified School District Foundation and McCormick-Stillman Ranch Railroad Park.
Council Member Anna Thomasson asked that one factor to investigate before awarding funds is to see how a particular organization helps town residents.
“I’m trying to document the nexus between our dollars and the town,” Thomasson said. “I would just encourage as much data gathering and analysis as we can.”
Town Manager Andrew Ching said there was some data from MAG’s homelessness services that detailed how many of its users were transported from the town to various shelters.
“If you look at the historic funding over the last five years, you’ll see that, for instance, Duet has been funded every single year for the past five years. Part of the reason that’s true is because Duet has a pretty significant nexus between people in town who need their services and the fact that they receive those services, albeit at a very small level because we’re talking about one or two people,” Ching said. “The dollars that you (give) to them seem to be tailored to the need, which is a small need, but definitely a need that scores high in council’s desire to see programming that actually meets the needs of people in the community.”
From fiscal years 2021 to 2024, Duet received $10,000 each year from the town. That amount dropped to $5,000 for the 2025 fiscal year.
The town manager’s office also presented the council with a menu of areas that could benefit from community services funding based on past donations.
They include:
- Children, youth and family
- Seniors
- Human services transportation
- Homelessness
- Health
- Veterans
- Parks and environment
- Public safety
- Arts
Vice Mayor Ellen Andeen-Keller voiced her opposition to the dollar amount going into community services funding, something she voted against for the current fiscal year.
“I am not a big fan of the amount of money that we’re giving now. I think that if we didn’t use this much money, we could probably use it in a (capital improvement project) fund and something like that to benefit our residents,” Andeen-Keller said. “I do support sending money to (Central Arizona Shelter Services) as I always have, but I definitely don’t see myself supporting $265,000 or $260,000 going out the door without any more data or anything like that. I just think it’s way too much and we have a lot of bloating in our financials and we need to look at that.”
While voicing his support to provide funds to groups that directly support Paradise Valley residents, Stanton also said it was important to look at the town’s position in the greater community.
“As my role on council as mayor, I think it’s a good program because we’re helping to better the community and obviously focusing on needs assessment of those that can impact positively on the residents of Paradise Valley,” he said. “But I also look at (Central Arizona Shelter Services) and other groups (and) we can’t forget that we’re part of a bigger community and that we should be part of a of a solution-driven space.”
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Janet Perez
News Editor | Florence &
Queen Creek
Meet Janet
Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.