(Riverton, WY) At a work session on Tuesday evening, Riverton City Council heard from twelve community service providers who applied for Community Service contracts for the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
The City of Riverton receives direct distribution funding from the State of Wyoming each year, allocated towards one-time purchases and capital expenditures. A portion is provided to local programs and organizations that benefit the community’s citizens not under the direct oversight of the City of Riverton and not maintained as city departments.
Last year, the city approved funding requests totaling $276,285 to eleven entities. This year, city staff received $391,720 in funding requests from the following organizations:
Central Wyoming CATS
Central Wyoming Skate Association
Eagle’s Hope Transitions Center
Injury Prevention
Juvenile Justice Services of Fremont County (Youth Services)
PAWS for Life Animal League
R Recreation
Riverton Chamber of Commerce
Riverton Chamber of Commerce-Airport Fremont Passage Monument
Riverton Little League
Riverton Swim Club
Riverton Volunteer Firemen
After the presentations, Mayor Richard Gard expressed his appreciation for all of the organizations, and “the importance of what you do and how it makes Riverton a nicer place to live,” he said. “If we don’t have these activities in Riverton, we don’t have a community.”
Mayor Gard also explained the purpose of Community Services funding and why the monies couldn’t be used or mixed with other funds, referring to the recent increase in water and wastewater services.
“What the citizens of Riverton need to know is when you pay your water bill, all that money goes into the water fund. It’s not easy to make water; we have to make that water to pass EPA standards, and they’re checked weekly. So with that test, we know that our water is good, and know the costs to make that water, and know what money is coming on the top of that. If we were to take this $391-thousand and put it on top of the water fund, we would then have to create a loan back to the General Fund which we would have to pay interest on, back to ourselves. We don’t have the capability to do that…”
“So over the years, we’ve taken these asks from the community,” Gard continued. “If we had to run youth baseball, we just wouldn’t have baseball. If we had to run PAWS, we would be a kill station. So with this funding that we do have…we try to be fiscally responsible for the dollars that we get.”
Finance Director Mia Harris added that this was the first phase of the budget process and that the process will last until the end of June. Notifications will go out to the organizations as soon as the City knows where the funds will be allocated.