The Marathon County Board revived funding for five nonprofits at a budget meeting Thursday night.
Six others will have their funding cut by a quarter.
The board had originally planned to cut 25 percent of the funding to all 11 nonprofits, but held onto full funding for the North Central Action Committee, The Women's Community, United Way's 2-1-1 program, the Educational Bootcamp, and the Marathon County Historical Society.
“I don’t like choosing these over the other ones, but as far as the importance to our strategic plan, I do support these, and I hope that you would, too, because, like I said, it is a vital part of our strategic plan,” said County Board Vice Chair Craig McEwen.
Six other groups, including Crime Stoppers, the Wisconsin Valley Fair, Healthy Teens, Marathon County Development Corporation, Partners for Progressive Agriculture, and Judicare Mediation Services Project, will see their funding cut by 25 percent.
The board’s plan calls for county funding of those programs to drop by a quarter each year until it reaches zero.
Supervisor Katie Rosenberg, who’s also running for Wausau mayor, praised the move to save full funding for some groups.
“Instead of just giving these nonprofits a donation, now we’re changing that. We’re saying ‘Hey, we want to contract with you. We want to make sure that we’re getting what we expect and we pay for.’ It’s a unique solution and solve to a couple of problems that we’ve been having when it comes to funding this stuff,” she said.
The decision to keep funding for the five nonprofits will need to be revisited in the 2021 budget.
