New county supervisor votes against discretionary funding requests

Newly elected county Supervisor Daron McDaniel made waves at his first Board of Supervisors meeting this week, voting against requests from fellow supervisors to spend their discretionary funding on four nonprofits.

Every year, $40,000 in taxpayer dollars is allotted to each of the five supervisors to use at their discretion, usually for community projects. The unused balance is rolled over at the end of each fiscal year.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, McDaniel voted against requests from his colleagues to forward $4,000 to New Beginnings for Merced County Animals, $1,000 to Court Appointed Special Advocates, $2,500 to the Merced County Rescue Mission and $6,000 to the Winton Lifeline Community Center.

The requests came from Supervisors John Pedrozo, Hub Walsh, Jerry O’Banion and Deidre Kelsey. Despite McDaniel’s opposition, the funding requests passed in a 4-1 majority vote.

The county’s policy on how the discretionary money is spent is vague, only specifying that the funds should be used for “minor maintenance needs, capital projects or special projects within the supervisorial district,” according to county documents.

County spokesman Mike North said the projects should also be beneficial to the community.

While McDaniel said he doesn’t dispute the worthiness of the four organizations, he believes taxpayer money shouldn’t be used for nonprofits.

“We’re overseeing taxpayer dollars. If we want to put them to good use, we should use it for brick-and-mortar or public safety,” McDaniel said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We do have a choice to donate to nonprofit organizations, and when the government donates to nonprofit organizations, I don’t think we are doing the taxpayers justice.”

McDaniel said he’d much rather see the money put toward renovating public county buildings and beefing up public safety – two services he believes taxpayers would benefit from. McDaniel also said having the supervisors pick and choose nonprofits to receive discretionary funding could create a conflict.

“I think it creates competition among the nonprofits because we are picking and choosing,” he said. “There will be winners and losers.”

But Kelsey on Tuesday argued that many of the nonprofits provide services that are beneficial to the community and complement the social services the county provides. If those services were to disappear, Kelsey said, it could impact the county and its pocketbook.

Using the nonprofit New Beginnings for Merced County Animals as an example, which Kelsey has supported numerous times in the past, she said it costs the county more money to euthanize the large population of unwanted animals.

Discretionary fund requests are made directly to each supervisor, according to North. There is no paperwork involved in requesting the money. The supervisors pass the requests on to the Public Works Department, and then it goes through a “routing process,” with other departments reviewing the request.

Those departments are the auditor-controller, the county executive officer’s office and county counsel.

“If it meets the stipulations, it’s really up to the board to decide whether they want to go forward with a project or not,” North said. Requests must be approved by the majority of the board members.

McDaniel made no secret of his opposition to the discretionary funds on the campaign trail.

During a League of Women Voters’ candidates forum in October, he said the combined $200,000 between the five districts could be put back into the general fund. “(That’s) where we can really use it,” he said. “In the state that our county is in, that’s extra money … and it has to be used wisely.”

McDaniel is not alone in his objection. Over the years, a number of community members and political hopefuls, including local radio host Casey Steed, have taken aim at the discretionary funding – calling it a “slush fund” for supervisors to support pet projects.

At least three county supervisors have used the money to pay for the salaries of personal assistants: Kelsey, Pedrozo and former District 3 Supervisor Linn Davis.

This story was originally published January 14, 2015 at 8:26 PM with the headline "New county supervisor votes against discretionary funding requests."