Buncombe advisory committee adopts simpler 3-point scoring rubric for FY2027 grants

The Buncombe County Home and Community Care Block Grant Advisory Committee on its December meeting voted to adopt a simplified, three-point scoring rubric to evaluate FY2027 grant applications. The committee approved a motion to adopt the changes and the scoring approach by voice vote; the motion carried with no opposition recorded.

Committee members said the 3-point scale is intended to keep the group’s stated purposes central to decisions while making reviewer discussions more straightforward. Speaker 2 described the change as a move toward clarity: the group agreed to three options — average, good and excellent — and to assign 1–3 numeric values behind those descriptors for internal tallying. "Let's just do the simple approach, suggestion 1," Speaker 2 said when proposing the change.

Debate centered on whether a more granular numeric score would improve objectivity. Speaker 6 and others argued that a written rubric helps make ratings auditable and explains why one applicant received a lower score than another. Speaker 5 offered a risk-assessment matrix used in other work as an example for monitoring and clarifying what constitutes a 1, 2 or 3.

The committee framed the scoring tool as a first-pass aid rather than the sole determinant of funding: members said discussion of applications will remain important to capture program nuances. The grants administrator and staff will compile individual reviewer scores and share them with the committee, as has been done in prior years.

Next steps: staff will update the scoring sheet and application language, circulate edits for committee review over the holidays, and apply the new rubric when reviewing FY2027 applications in March and April.