The Bainbridge Island City Council will review a controversial partnership with the Bainbridge Community Foundation at the council’s meeting this week that city officials say will help improve accountability and oversight of the roughly $320,000 in funding given out yearly to nonprofits on the island.

Some in the island’s nonprofit community, however, are worried that money that could go to serving residents will be wasted on a consultant that’s really not needed.

City officials are considering a proposal from the Bainbridge Community Foundation that would help the city set up a review and evaluation process for nonprofits that seek city funding for health, housing and human services.

If approved by the council, the city would pay the foundation more than $21,000 to help the city set up funding goals, with the foundation taking over as administrators of the allocation process. Approximately $8,500 of the funding would help pay for executive director of the foundation and its finance officer to attend a city council meeting where the city’s goals would be established, and a later council briefing to develop the parameters and specifics of a funding framework.

The notion to tap the Bainbridge Community Foundation as a human services consultant first arose earlier this year.

But at the council’s May 5 meeting, representatives of nonprofits from across the island raised alarm at the idea, which some feared would reduce the amount of city funding available to local nonprofits such as Helpline House, the Bainbridge Island Special Needs Foundation, Boys & Girls Club and others.

At that meeting, city officials could not say how much the foundation would be paid for its assistance.

Officials from island nonprofits, though, said any amount of funding would mean less money for direct services that are provided by local nonprofits.

In a letter to the city council, the board of Helpline House said even just using 1 to 10 percent (or $3,000 to $30,000) of the funding currently devoted to health, housing and human services would have a negative impact.

“Helpline’s Board of Directors unanimously opposes this proposal,” the board wrote in the letter. “None of the limited funds available for human services should be spent on administration by a private foundation.”

“The city previously tried this approach, and it was a failure,” the letter continued. “It was an approach that wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on layers of unnecessary administration. It created a process that proved to be highly political, and one that was unduly burdensome on the human-services agencies.”

That failed approach led to city residents getting fewer services due to the money, time and resources gobbled up by the administration of the old system, the board said.

That old system was the Health, Housing and Human Services Council (HHHC), an organization that was set up by the city in 1993 and worked as a volunteer board until 1999, when it got a large, three-year grant to provide youth services and then hired an executive director. After funding from the three-year grant ran out, the city stepped forward with funding and contracted with HHHC, which identified and recommended local

organizations to receive human services funding from the city.

When the recession hit, funding for HHHC was cut two years in a row — to $75,000 from $150,000 in 2011 and then down to $25,000 the following year — and the organization disbanded when further cuts in city funding loomed on the horizon.

Since the departure of HHHC, the city has been awarding human services grants to the same 11 nonprofits that received funding in HHHC’s last recommendation to the city.

Discussions on taking a closer look at the city’s funding for health, housing and human services started to ramp up in March, when city officials asked the council to consider priorities and funding that could be sustainable long-term.

Officials also said the city had not reviewed the significance of the programs receiving money, or the results from city grant funding, over the past three years.

City spokeswoman Kellie Stickney said creating a new allocation process will help the city make sure it is being fiscally responsible, and would increase accountability and transparency.

The size of the funding allocated to housing, health and human services is a large amount, she added, and totals approximately 3 percent of the city’s general fund. The general fund is the budget that pays for basic government services, such as planning, police and administrative services.

“It’s a significant amount of money to be awarding without a really good process,” Stickney said.

City officials are now suggesting that the Bainbridge Community Foundation be used to help allocate human services funding for a “one-year trial” period, for any funding awards made in 2016. A new citizen advisory committee would also be formed to make recommendations on goals and funding awards.

Funding that would pay professional fees to the Bainbridge Community Foundation for its assistance have not been budgeted. Stickney could not say Tuesday where that money would come from. The city council will also need to approve a budget amendment at some point, if an agreement is reached with the foundation.

It’s the size of the funding for the foundation, and the prospect that it may come from the same pot used to pay for grants to nonprofits, that raised concerns the last time the proposal was before the council.

Bob Scales, a board member for Helpline House, urged the council at their May meeting not to repeat the same mistakes that had been made with HHHC while he was on the city council.

Instead, it should rely on local volunteers and not consultants, Scales said, to oversee the grant funding process. And he discounted fears from some at city hall who are worried about a potential drain on city staff time if the city has to help assist a volunteer board.

“You can find the experience in the community to staff that board,” Scales said.

“There are agencies that are struggling and there clients are struggling,” he told the council. “If you are going to spend one extra dollar, spend it on the services, not on a consultant to tell you how to spend the money.”

The city council will next meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16 at city hall.