As Council is aware, requests from not-for-profit organizations of recognized annual special events are submitted during the city’s budget cycle in order to some extent plan for the upcoming fiscal year’s general fund budget. In the case of the current fiscal year, an appropriation of $60,000.00 was established in order to support the following events with an in-kind contribution:
1. Chasco Fiesta
2. KIAFest/Fourth of July Celebration
3. Cotee River Bike Fest
4. Holiday Street Parade
Although I had planned to present this item to you at one of your recent budget work sessions, I was unable to do so as staff had not received completed application packets from the event organizers within the timeframe that was requested. In fact, to date staff has still not received the required documents from some of the event organizers.
Therefore, attached for your review are the proposal packets received from the organizers of the above referenced events which contain items such as the organization’s purpose, the proposed event and income and expense information. The reason that I am passing the information along is to aid you in ultimately determining the true public benefit (i.e. economic, charitable, entertainment) and the proper level of public funding to support each event.
Please note that the exception is the KIAFest/Fourth of July Celebration for which you will find no submittal since Mr. John Gilliss assumes the responsibility for all of the hard costs associated with the event and the City in turn handles the costs associated with staffing the one-day event.
It should also be noted that the New Port Richey Main Street organization will not be hosting any large scale events which qualify for in-kind support from the City during the coming year.
As is always the case, the amount of funding requested by the event organizers exceeds the amount of funding that was budgeted to support the special events. In specific respect to variables such as: community support, economic impact to the business community, reflection on the image of the city and charitable benefit to city residents, I have developed a recommendation matrix which is attached for your reference and consideration.