Council decides recipients of first round of financial assistance

Up until the current financial year, 12 not-for-profit organisations had received yearly recurring funding from council, costing council $69,000 in 2017/18. 

Those organisations were contacted in April by council advising them of council’s draft proposal to remove recurring financial assistance, instead requesting organisations apply for two rounds of funding each year. 

“Council agrees, that it is time that the list of Recurrent Financial Assistance recipients be reviewed as circumstances for some individual recipients may have changed and they may no longer be as reliant on Council financial assistance as they have been in the past,” Mayor Stephen Lesslie said at the time. 

Council received 27 applications for financial assistance in the first round of funding for the 2018-19 financial year. 

The applications were considered by the Community Development Committee earlier in July and were approved at the council meeting on July 23.

Two organisations who previously received recurrent funding did not apply: Ironfest, and the Lithgow Show Society. The Lithgow Chamber of Commerce’s application was declined as it fell outside the financial assistance guidelines and was “best considered as a business support request through Council’s economic advisory committee.” Portland Golf Club was asked for more information in a subsequent application. 

The allocation of $10,000 for Arts Out West was deferred by councillors who requested the general manager report back on the “material benefits” the organisation provides to Lithgow. Arts Out West previously received recurrent assistance, in 2017/18 it received $12,749. 

The recipients are Lithgow Community Projects music group ($1000), LINC sewing group ($1,500), Rydal Show ($1000), rate reimbursement for Lithgow District Car Club ($1000),1918: Back from the Brink ($1000), Mingaan Wiradjuri Aboriginal Coporation’s NAIDOC Week ($3000), Lithgow Cares Coalition ($3000), LINC parenting program ($3000), Tarana Tanker Trailers ($1200), rate reimbursement for First Australian Muzzle Loading Gun Club ($1000), Wallerawang’s Go Fish Australia Day ($1,500), the Mining Museum ($1,800), White Ribbon Trivia Night ($1000), LINC rental assistance ($10,450), Western Region Academy of Sport ($1,192), Lithgow Tidy Towns ($2,500), Wallerawang Tidy Towns ($1,025), Cullen Bullen Tidy Towns ($1,050), Portland Tidy Towns ($1,025), Rydal Daffodil Festival ($1500) and Dargan Clarence RFS ($1200).

You can find the details of projects being funded in Item 16 of the council minutes. 

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