Facing a tight budget year and a $9 million shortfall due to unexpected property tax appeals, the city of Durham came close to slashing nearly $1 million in funding for partner organizations to help make ends meet.
After City Manager Bo Ferguson proposed the funding cuts to help offset a budget deficit, the community pushed back at City Hall. The city now plans to dip into its savings to restore $770,576 in the budget, which the City Council will vote on June 15.
Ferguson released a proposed budget on May 18 that would have eliminated $927,323 in funding to eight partner organizations. These included the West End Community Foundation (WECF) at Lyon Park and the Durham Expunction and Restoration (DEAR) program. At the time, Ferguson pointed to a “one-time surge in successful property tax appeals” that resulted in the city having less revenue than the year before.
Nonprofit leaders and beneficiaries rallied around organizations facing cuts, packing the City Council meeting room on June 1 during the budget discussion.
“We all have heard the outcry, particularly around Lyon Park and some of the community groups that we have proposed funding cuts to,” Councilmember Shanetta Burris told the INDY. “And then we discussed in detail their value-adds to the community. It just didn’t seem like a good moment to cut that.”
To find the funding—which ranges from $2,700 for Little League baseball to $245,000 for legal assistance—the city is pulling from its fund balance, which is a pool of savings reserved for emergencies. A spokesperson for the city said taking from the fund balance is a one-time fix, and the city will have to reevaluate next year whether funding to these organizations can continue.
The city plans to restore full funding to seven of the organizations and will restore half of its funding to the Durham County district attorney’s office, which had faced the largest cut initially proposed.
The funding cuts, released in the proposed budget just six weeks before the start of the fiscal year, blindsided some of the organizations’ leaders. The city received notice of tax revenue projections later than usual, requiring the city manager to adjust the proposed budget quickly and without advance notice to affected organizations, the spokesperson said.
“It was morally wrong for organizations who have been partnering with the city to get a notification that within a month’s time, they would have no more funding coming in,” Mayor Leonardo Williams told the INDY.
Emily Mistr, a project director who works with the DEAR program, said she is relieved to hear the city will maintain its $245,000 in funding. The program helps Durhamites restore suspended driver’s licenses and clear charges and convictions from their criminal records.
“If we are going to need to find extra funding or additional funding for a future period, at least we have a runway to do that now,” Mistr said.
DEAR is the Durham branch of the Second Chance Project at Legal Aid, which offers expunction assistance statewide. At the DEAR program’s inception in 2019, the city funded a grant that paid for three attorneys and a paralegal, Mistr said. Now, the city’s grant funds one attorney and a paralegal—positions the initial proposed budget would have cut.
Funding cuts to DEAR would have moved Durham’s expunction efforts to the statewide program—cutting the number of charges attorneys would have been able to expunge in Durham by 90%, Mistr said. Funding cuts would have entirely eliminated the driver’s license restoration component, which is one of few in the state.
Andrea “Muffin” Hudson said the DEAR program helped her get her license back in 2019 after more than 16 years without one. Unable to pay legal fees for an expired tag citation, Hudson accumulated dozens of tickets for driving on a suspended license before DEAR stepped in, alleviating all costs to help Hudson get her license back.
“It is creating second chances,” Hudson told the City Council on June 1. “It ensures that one mistake does not become a lifetime sentence.”
Community members were outraged to find out that the Lyon Park community center would have its funding pulled. At the June 1 council meeting, advocates shared the importance of the community center’s history and the value of its recreational programs.
The initial proposed budget eliminated the city’s $191,400 lease at the community center, where Durham Parks and Recreation hosts activities.
The center was established as a school for Black students in 1922. In 2002, the school transitioned to a community center with help from the city and now primarily serves neighborhoods in southwest central Durham.
Dosali Reed-Bandele, executive director at WECF, said she is “cautiously optimistic” ahead of the June 15 budget vote.
“I don’t think they thought about what the community impact would be,” Reed-Bandele said about the initial proposed budget.
Williams said that going forward, he wants to establish a more permanent relationship between the city and WECF, beyond a lease that could be terminated at any time. He suggested a partnership similar to that with the Hayti Heritage Center, where the city uses the facility as an events venue.
Funding will also be fully restored to the Durham Symphony, Sister Cities of Durham, Long Ball Program–Durham Triple Play Leagues, El Centro Hispano, and the Birchwood Heights Community Center.
But at the district attorney’s office, the city will bring back only half of the $300,000 it initially planned to cut, still cutting more than $150,000.
The district attorney’s office has 19 assistant district attorneys, or ADAs, funded by the state, and the city funds two additional ADAs and a paralegal for domestic violence cases. District Attorney Satana Deberry wrote to the city on June 1 that the ADA positions are already severely underfunded. She said to the INDY that cutting positions would push a higher caseload onto current prosecutors, increasing wait times for victims to get their cases through court.
“We want to be in a place where people in Durham County trust that we are doing our work here to the best of our ability and efficiently, and that our partners in the community continue to trust us too,” Deberry said. “And unfortunately, you need resources to do that.”
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