GREENFIELD — At its June meeting, the Hancock County Tourism Commission asked potential grantees to come back next month, because there wasn’t enough money to help everyone.
Several organizations were asked to return at the July meeting because not enough money had been appropriated for all nine nonprofits seeking grant funding.
Tourism Commission treasurer Kelly McClarnon said the commission would be changing how it operates as of the June meeting, because they had not been following proper procedures as set by state law previously.
“We have to only spend what we have appropriated, for the money to flow properly and to abide by the state statute,” McClarnon said.
The commission had appropriated about $32,000 ahead of the June meeting, but the grant requests from eight nonprofit organizations exceeded that amount. The commission asked to grant only partial amounts or for those with less pressing needs to come back at the July meeting, slated for July 10.
The commission had $83 left for funding grants by the end of the meeting, said member George Langston.
An additional appropriation of $27,300 is pending approval by the state Department of Local Government Finance, Langston said. However, only about $10,000 of that amount is reserved for grants; after that is spent, the commission will not be able to provide grants to organizations for the rest of the year, he said.
Some $205,000 total has been disbursed in grant funding this year, with $50,000 going toward the renovation of the ‘Lizbuth Ann’s Kitchen facility at the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home and Museum, officials said.
The change to the commission’s policies comes after members Kelly McClarnon, Rosalie Richardson and George Langston formed a finance committee at the beginning of this year.
Langston has been a fixture at the Hancock County Visitors Center, where he has been assisting tourism director Brigette Cook Jones, McClarnon said.
While Langston declined an opportunity to become the commission’s treasurer earlier this year, he has become a bookkeeper for the commission, Jones said. He has been helping McClarnon and the rest of the commission with the budget, tracking expenditures and making sure the all-volunteer commission follows state auditing rules and accounting rules, she added.
The retired Air Force airman volunteers his time to cover mornings at the Hancock County Visitors Center, 119 W. North St., and provide bookkeeping advice to members, who he said have not followed correct procedures in the past.
“It’s a training issue, it’s not these folks’ fault,” he said. “They didn’t know the procedures, they didn’t know what was required of them.”
Langston and several other concerned members of the community first began approaching county officials in 2015, attempting to alert them to the discrepancies, he said.
Langston’s concern led to him agreeing to become a member of the tourism commission late last year, he said.
“I want to help steer them and get on the right track,” he said. “They just need to follow the regulations, that’s what I did in the military. Follow the regs and you don’t get in trouble.”
