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Department, and the Department of House and Neighborhood Services.
“(The appropriated funds) are for various grants that the departments receive,” said Susan Kaiser, the director of Financial Services.
Kaiser said that the town council must legally appropriate the grants in order for them to go into effect. While they are given to departments from the state and not the town, the town must be the middle person to appropriate them.
The total amount of money from these grants runs at $131,347. The total will be split up for the different departments to use for their own programs.
According to a staff report composed by Kaiser, “the appropriations will be offset by an increase in Intergovernmental Revenues.”
Two of the grants that will be appropriated to the Police Department include a $63,030 grant to the New River Drug Task Force and a $6,999 grant to the Community Coalition. The first grant was given from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services System. The grant from the state includes $47,273 and $15,757 to the local law enforcement agencies in the New River Valley. The second grant comes from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to help prevent underage drinking.
The Planning and Engineering Department will also be receiving two grants. The first is a $44,000 grant from the Virginia Department of
Conservation and Recreation to Virginia Tech’s Reducing Urban Storm Water Impacts within the Stroubles Creek Watershed program. It will fund the construction of two storm water managements on town property. The other grant is a $9,999 water quality improvement grant to the town from the Virginia Department of Forestry, which will fund the installation of trees and other vegetation.
The last grant is being given to the Department of Housing and Neighboring Services. It is a $7,319 grant from the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality Litter Fund. The grant will be used to fund the litter pickup in Blacksburg.
The Department of Housing and Neighboring Services is also receiving other block grants from the state.
“We get two separate pools,” said Matthew Hanratty, manager of the Department of Housing and Neighboring Services.
The first pool deals with community development block grants that are given to the town annually. This year’s grant was $744,355. For the 2008 fiscal year this will go down to $732,157. Hanratty said that the lowering of the block grant comes from the type of grant being under fire due to the current presidential administration’s desire to cut budget spending. However, he believes that these figures will go up with the Democrats in the majority in Congress.
Hanratty also stated that, because it is a block grant, it can only be spent in Blacksburg for programs in the Department of Housing and Neighboring Services.
The second pool deals with a new initiative called the New River Valley Home Consorting. This is not a local sum of money. The initiative of $827,192 will help fund housing costs for regional low to moderate income housing. Blacksburg is the leading entity and will dispense the money to other entities in the New River Valley. Floyd County will not be participating.
The different allocations for the entities, including Blacksburg, have yet to be determined. Hanratty predicts that it will be somewhere over $100,000. A meeting to discuss the amounts will be held Wednesday, April 18. Hanratty predicts that it will benefit the New River Valley.
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