By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
The Ellis County Commission heard funding requests from 18 representatives of 23 outside agencies for the 2025 budget on Tuesday.
According to Ellis County Administrator Darin Myers, the outside agencies requested $1.39 million. That is an increase of $100,000 from the county's funding in 2024. The commission requested agencies keep their funding requests the same as the previous year.
Earlier this month, the commission elected to split the agencies into two categories as it transitions into a new way to determine funding for outside agencies starting in 2025.
Beginning next year, 15 agencies will submit their funding requests to the CARE Council, whose members will go through the applications and then interview representatives from each entity before the council makes its funding recommendations to the county commission.
Those 15 agencies are mostly nonprofit organizations that have received funding from the county in the past, but the county is not obligated to provide them with funding.
For 2025, those agencies requested $168,912.
According to Myers, that is $15,170 more than the county has budgeted for 2025 funding.
The remaining eight agencies that the county is obligated to fund, requested $1.16 million, $161,537 more than they received in 2024.
The largest requested increase was $75,000 from the Ellis County Historical Society.
The historical society received $110,000 last year and requested $185,000 for 2025.
Executive Director Amanada Rupp told the county commission this week that the level of funding they requested from the county and the city is “comparable, in a lot of ways,” to other historical societies and county museums across the state.
Rupp said for their yearly expenses, about 64% is covered by the county and an additional 14.5% comes from the city.
“Leaving us with about 21% to come up with ourselves,” Rupp said. “And as you’ve seen over the last couple of years, we have increased our ability to raise our own funds, and we’ll continue to do so.”
Rupp said the public funding covers the cost of maintaining the large complexes owned and operated by the historical society and the staff that run them. They have three part-time employees and utilize several volunteers.
With the addition of the Victoria site, Rupp said they believe the admission will cover the costs of the second site, and they will be able to continue to operate with the current staffing levels.
Both Ellis County Commission Nathan Leiker and Neil Younger complimented Rupp on how far the historical society has come in the last several years. Commissioner Michael Berges was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.
“You have jumped leaps and bounds,” Younger said. “Thank you, and thank all the volunteers for all the hard work they’ve done.”
Rupp said they will continue to work to improve the historical society, and while she would like more funding to increase their staffing levels, they will continue to operate the way they have.
“Right now, we’re in a building phase and a reorganization phase, but we’re almost to the end of that,” Rupp said. “You’re going to see some bigger results in participation in events and things that we can host on our own.”
The funding request from the historical society has increased from $72,250 in 2021 to $185,000 for 2025.
Grow Hays also requested an increase of $10,000 for 2025.
Grow Hays Executive Director Doug Williams told the commission the $180,000 requested for 2025 was the same as requested in 2024, but the commission elected to fund the group $170,000.
The largest increase in funding requests from the other group of outside agencies was $5,000 from the Hays Arts Council. They have not requested funds over the last four years but did receive $3,385 in 2018 and 2019.
The commission will meet with department heads later this summer to discuss 2025 budgets.