To: Board of County Commissioners
Through: Michelle Halstead, Director, Commissioners' Office
Prepared By:
prepared
Catherine Kosse, Management Analyst I, Commissioners' Office
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presenter
Presenter: Catherine Kosse, Management Analyst I, Commissioners' Office; Jill Flygare & Desari Read, LSI Consultants
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Subject:
title
1:45 PM *Update on County Grants Consultant
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Purpose and Request:
recommended action
The purpose of this study session is to introduce LSI, the county's grants consultant, provide an update on their progress thus far, and solicit commissioner feedback to inform the needs assessment and strategic planning workshop.
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Background and Discussion: As county funding has become more constrained, there has been an increased emphasis on grant funding but without specific grant research and writing expertise. The county's current grant application process is decentralized with individual departments and elected offices researching and submitting applications individually following approval from the Board of County Commissioners. These applications are reviewed by the County Attorney and the Finance Department only to ensure the legal, reporting, and compliance requirements of the grant can be met and to determine if additional staffing, resources, or funding will be needed as a matching requirement or to perform the services of the grant. The County's strategic plan, adopted in 2023, identified increasing revenue as one of six strategic focus areas, with the objective of increasing the County's ability to secure grant funding and other innovative ideas for existing assets and programs as one way to achieve this goal.
The Board agreed to prioritize the search and procurement of additional funding streams by partnering with a grants consultant to develop a coordinated grant pilot program that could help define how to manage the overall grant process, maximize the benefits of grant funding, and help determine how the County s...
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