Is Kingsport playing favorites with budget funding?
It will interesting to see what pet projects, the Kingsport Board of Mayor and Alderman will fund in the upcoming 2009-2010 budget.
There has been discussions concerning the funding of the Summer Concert. The Chamber of Commerce has requested $94,000 because corporate donations are down. The city appears that they would be willing to give $70,000 which is what they gave last year.
It appears that the citizens of Kingsport in these tough economic times, will have to fund the Summer Concerts that for the most part benefit the downtown businesses. I think you would hear downtown businesses get very vocal if the Summer Concerts were held somewhere else besides downtown. If they want the Summer Concerts, then they should fund it.
One also needs to look at how the KNETIC organization was able to get the concessions and beer sales for the Summer Concerts. In the past years, it was handled by the Chamber of Commerce who subcontracted to the Downtown Kingsport Association. On the KNETIC website, they state their members ages ranges from 20 somethings to 40 somethings and they boast that they have 2 Alderman as members. There are only two Alderman’s ages that fit that age range and only one of the two is running for re-election as an Alderman. Also, one needs to ask are there any family members of Mayor Dennis Phillips that are connected to KNETIC.
Alderman Pat Shull has stated that the funding of the concerts is a very narrow interest type thing and the $70,000 could be spent elsewhere like fixing streets.
Below are some items that were in the 2008-2009 budget.
- Kingsport Ballet $5,000
- Summer Concert $70,000
- Kingsport Theatre Guild $5,000
- Kingsport Art Guild $2,000
- Symphony of the Mountains $5,000
- Art Council of Greater Kingsport $7,000
- Kingsport Housing Redevelopment Authority – Lincoln Street property $200,000
- Kingsport Housing Redevelopment Authority – redevelopment program $63,000
- Kingsport Chamber Foundation $110,000
- Kingsport Tomorrow Inc community program $23,000
- Networks $225,000
- Downtown Kingsport Association $40,000
- Children Advocacy Center of Sullivan County $5,900
- First Tennessee Development District $3,200
- Sullivan County Humane Society $36,000
- First Tennessee Resource Agency $10,900
- Kingsport Chamber of Commerce – Move to Kingsport $45,000. Plus Kingsport will pay another $45,000 matching funds
- Holston Business Group $50,000. Plus a percentage of the city annual budget.
- Kingsport Chamber of Commerce gets a large percentage of the hotel tax
- City Manager got a 4% pay raise on July 1, 2008 plus his performance increase