An error in a spreadsheet used to calculate the payments to agencies United Way of Hill County funds has led to a serious cut in funding for 16 agencies, highlighting the need for contributions in the fundraiser going on for next year. “We had to trim back the last three checks that are going to the agencies,” said Jane McFarlane, executive director of United Way of Hill County. The funding was already less than what the 17 agencies had requested for the year. United Way’s 2006 fundraising goal, the total amount requested for 2007, was $115,000. The total received was $94,000. They thought they had raised $109,000. This year’s goal is $117,000. McFarlane said that when the spreadsheet was set up to compute payments for this year’s funding, some contributions were included twice, increasing the total amount United Way appeared to have to distribute. That meant that the agencies funded, except for Kitty Keepers which is funded only by specific donations to Kitty Keepers, received more than they should have for the first nine months of the year, leaving a serious shortfall for the last three months. With the funds still available after the overfunding the first part of the year, the agencies will receive about 37 percent of the previous funding, McFarlane said. Trina Crawford of Havre’s Salvation Army said the loss amounts to a total budget cut of about 15 percent for her office through the rest of the year. “For the next few months we’re definitely not going to be able to help as many people as we did before,” Crawford said. She said donations d i r e c t l y t o t h e S a l va t i o n Army, either at the offices or at the thrift store, designated to help in its general operations could help make up the shortfall. Jerry Williams of the Feed My Sheep Soup Kitchen said the cuts will impact the soup kitchen’s purchases as well, and that he is waiting to see how donations directly to the operation will help fill it in. November is the biggest month for donations, he added. The reduced funding is directly impacting some major projects the soup kitchen was working on, such as adding a walk-in freezer to replace the chest freezers now used. The loss of funding is setting that back, he said. “We would like to expand our freezer,” Williams said. “It would not only help reduce our utilities but let us help the community more.” Joe Uhl, director of rural services for the Center for Mental Health in Havre, said his agency has been able to work around the loss of funding, but having the United Way money is very helpful because it is not designated for specific uses. “It’s really convenient for us to have that, it’s very flexible,” Uhl said. “Everything else has so many strings attached.” The error was made before McFarlane started as executive director — “It was a mistake anyone could have made,” she added — and wasn’t caught until she looked at the books in September. Even with the reduced funding, some of the agencies are still receiveing about as much as they did last year because of a serious shortfall in the fundraiser the year before, she said. McFarlane said the final computation will be made figuring how much money is remaining to be distributed. The December funding could be a little more, she said. “We will exhaust every bit of money,” she said. McFarlane said that people can still make donations to United Way designated for the 2007 funding year, which could help the agencies more easily make it throught the last few months of the year. Hill County agencies impacted by the spreadsheet error that caused United Way of Hill County to cut funding for the last months of the year are:
• Boy Scouts of America,
• Center for Mental Health,
• Child Care Link,
• Domestic Abuse Program,
• Feed My Sheep Soup Kitchen,
• Hill County Family Planning,
• Girl Scouts of Big Sky Council,
• Havre Community Food Bank,
• Hi-Line Therapeutic Riding Association,
• Hill County Council on Aging,
• Hill County Meals on Wheels,
• Hill County Mentoring,
• American Red Cross,
• Salvation Army and
• Senior Companion Program.
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