Black Hawk supervisors debate options for $100,000 community service funds; staff to return with two scenarios

The Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors spent the bulk of its Dec. 23 meeting debating how to distribute $100,000 budgeted for FY 2026 community service grants. After reviewing the scoring rubric and applicant totals, supervisors asked staff to produce two options for the board to vote on at the next meeting: an awards schedule limited to the top 15 ranked applicants and a scenario that funds all applicants who score 300 points or higher on the board’s 500-point rubric.

Board members described competing priorities in the room: one approach would concentrate larger awards in fewer organizations, while the other would spread smaller awards more widely. Members discussed possible maximum awards tied to score bands — for example, proposals that would cap awards at $20,000 for organizations scoring in the 90th percentile, $15,000 for the 80s, and $10,000 for lower brackets — and noted that any final numbers must be reconciled to the $100,000 appropriation.

The board reviewed the mechanics of the existing process: applicants were scored against a rubric totaling 500 points; staff and board reviewers have previously used both a ranked top‑10 approach and other allocation methods. One member said redacting organization names could reduce subjective bias in scoring, while others argued name removal would strip useful context and said reviewers could instead score objectively. The board also discussed whether some applicants already receiving other county or municipal funds should be treated differently in award calculations.

Chris, a board member who spoke during the meeting, proposed sharing video highlights of departmental presentations with state legislators to better illustrate county activities and funding needs. Staff said they will prepare two spreadsheets showing dollar allocations under the two models and will bring those figures back for final action next week.

Next steps: staff will return with the top‑15 and 300‑point cutoff scenarios, dollarized to equal the $100,000 budgeted, and the board expects to vote on an allocation method at the following meeting.