Should Hamilton County commissioners be able to donate to charities with taxpayer money?
In light of a recent controversial donation from several members of the commission and ahead of pending legislation to tighten rules regarding individual travel and discretionary funds, commissioners, the county mayor and watchdogs are weighing the benefits of allowing donations from commission funds.
September donations by five commissioners to the Harrison Ruritan Club were returned by the club last month after an order by the commission to use the $4,000 from county funds to benefit a church program designed to feed kids in need.
Since the commission is not allowed to donate directly to a church, the club returned the donation to avoid facilitating a potential violation of state law.
While the money was returned and reinstated to the appropriate district funds, the hiccup resurfaced ongoing discussions about the propriety of the funds, even when used correctly, among the commission and the public.
"Taxpayers shouldn't be putting together a slush fund for individual commissioners," said Mark Cunningham, vice president of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based public policy organization, of the travel and discretionary funds used for the donation. "The issue isn't so much the use of these funds, but the fact that they exist at all. While it's pretty clear that the goal of [the Ruritan club] donation was to mislead where the funds were going, it doesn't sound like they broke any laws, though it's obviously very questionable behavior. But when there's a program or a fund like this, it's always going to be abused."
Despite the criticism, some commissioners support the fund.
"There's nothing wrong with the discretionary spending if it helps the community," District 4 Commissioner Warren Mackey argued. "Using taxpayer dollars to help the taxpayers is exactly our job as commissioners."
THE FUND
The money in question is $12,500 per commissioner, or $112,500 total, out of the commission's operating budget allocated annually for travel and discretionary spending. The funds cover travel expenses for training and events, business expenses and other operational costs.
Unlike other county money, commissioners can donate their individual district's funds to nonprofits - if approved by a majority of the commission - and any unspent money rolls over to that same district's fund for the next fiscal year.
"That's how it's different than other travel funds," Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger said. "In other government offices, the unspent money is returned to the [county] general fund at the end of the year, and no one else can donate like that out of the taxpayer money."
Coppinger, who was appointed mayor in 2011 after five years on the commission, rallied against the then much larger fund in 2014, as the county fell on hard times, laying off several employees and tightening its fiscal belt.
"I took the [discretionary] fund out of the 2015 budget because it used to be $900,000, $100,000 for each of them, but they put it right back in, so I had to veto my own budget," Coppinger said of the fiscal year 2015 budget, which was ultimately passed with the full discretionary funds, plus a separate travel budget. "The next year it passed without the discretionary money, but, since [the commission] controls their own budget, they shifted to just using the travel fund as both."
The same autonomy over their funds is why Cunningham says Hamilton County's fund is worse than most comparable counties.
"It's one of the worst in the state, even though there's less money in it now, because of the rollover and the lack of checks and balances," Cunningham said. "I think it's interesting that the commissioners make the rules about their own funds. It is equivalent to playing a game of basketball and having the referee on your team."
Just last year, District 8 Commissioner Tim Boyd tried to reinstate the full $100,000 discretionary funds using bond proceeds and came up just one vote short.
At the same time, newly elected District 6 Commissioner David Sharpe motioned to end the rollover practice, only receiving support from two other commissioners - District 3 Commissioner Greg Martin and District 7 Commissioner Sabrena Smedley.
Now, commissioners are once again divided on how or whether to change spending rules.
THE COMMISSION
In response to questions of the funds' use and necessity, some commissioners defended their spending and the fund, some called for the county to return to the old system allocating more discretionary spending, and others suggested creating stricter rules on use and retention of the money.
For Martin, who has nearly $38,000 in unused funds accrued, the answer is simple.
"I have never used my funds for nonprofits because that's not what that money is for," Martin said, adding that he has been in talks with the county attorney about drafting a resolution to end the fund rollover. "I didn't want to introduce it at the end of the year, but I'll have it in the new year so we can vote on whether we should have this money rolling over."
Sharpe, Smedley and District 2 Commissioner Chip Baker, all of whom participated in the Ruritan Club donation, said that while they support donating to nonprofits, they could get behind tighter rules for the funds.
"I'm working in a system that already exists and I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to help hungry kids," Sharpe said of the donation. "But I introduced [an amendment] last year which would have ended the rollover. I don't want to condemn discretionary funds, but I can see how people would have a problem with it. It's definitely been misused."
Sharpe added that he thinks there are good uses of public funds to benefit citizens, but said there is room to study and improve the rules around the spending, echoing similar sentiments from both Smedley and Baker.
Other commissioners, however, scoffed at the idea of cutting the fund, even calling for increased discretionary money.
"I definitely want to restore those discretionary monies and the first chance that I get when I feel like other commissioners will sign on, I'm going to introduce the resolution to do it," Mackey said, calling for the full $100,000 to be reinstated to spend on programs under which the underprivileged benefit. "There is nothing illegal or inappropriate about discretionary money and to be quite candid no other money is coming into my areas and outlying areas there is poverty throughout the county and what I'm trying to do is help kids out where I can."
Mackey, who called his voting record "the smartest and most conservative" of the bunch, said that if any of the other commissioners felt they shouldn't spend their funds, he'd be happy to, adding that discretionary spending doesn't make him a "liberal big spender," but that his colleagues' trepidation was them being "politically correct."
"It is unfortunate that that program was sabotaged by leaders like the mayor who poisoned the water and made this look wasteful when it is helping needy people," Mackey said, adding that when he told Shelby County officials of the old discretionary fund, they adopted a similar program. "If they can institute a discretionary spending program, why can't we do so to help our citizens?"
Boyd largely agreed with Mackey, adding that while the issue with the Ruritan Club was "unfortunate," the county should reinstate the higher funds, but end the rollover fund.
"It's really, really neat how so few dollars can be used to help these nonprofits that are directly contributing to workforce development, literacy and other programs. If we had a reasonable amount of money to spend, we don't need a rollover and the money should go back in the general fund," Boyd said. "But I'm less worried about to [whom] the money is going and more worried about how it's getting there."
Boyd boasts using the donations to "leverage" nonprofits to match the funds, citing his August donation of $20,000 to SoundCorps, a music nonprofit where his daughter works, for which he required a dollar-for-dollar match.
"I gave [$20,000] to Sound Corp and they had to match it," Boyd said. "What I didn't do is buy a booth at a fundraiser. I don't believe in doing that. I don't donate to a nonprofit's general fund, but I like to earmark where it's going and I think making direct contributions to specific causes is more strict than any other commissioner is with their money."
District 9 Commissioner Chester Bankston said there is nothing wrong with the current system, adding that he not only stands by his decision to donate to the Ruritan Club but was the commissioner, as a member of the club, who orchestrated the joint donations.
District 1 Commissioner Randy Fairbanks and District 5 Commissioner Katherlyn Geter were not immediately available for comment on Friday.
Contact Sarah Grace Taylor at staylor@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416. Follow her on Twitter @_sarahgtaylor.