EXCERPT FROM: Quincy Herald-Whig
By Edward Husar
Officials with agencies that get subsidies from the city of Quincy say the money is vital to their operations, and the agencies would be hurt or threatened if the money was taken away.
"That would drastically hurt us," said April Almazan, director of the Walter Hammond Day Care Center in Quincy, which was given $8,000 this year. Almazan said the money has been distributed to the center in four quarterly allocations of $2,000 each.
She said the money is vital, especially in these cash-strapped times.
"It helps us sometimes to meet our payroll," she said. "Sometimes we use that for operational supplies for the children."
Almazan said the day care has been struggling lately because the state is behind in its payments to the center. This has put added pressure on the center to seek financial support from other sources.
"We are still struggling to maintain what we have," she said. Losing the city's allocation "would definitely threaten our operation."
Trudy Rollins, president of the Friends of the Castle, expressed similar concerns about the possibility of losing a $5,000 subsidy for the Villa Kathrine.
She said the subsidy is used to help pay the villa's ever-growing utility bills. Losing the funds "would hurt us," she said.
"We want to spend all the money we can on restoration," she said. "So that $5,000 going toward utilities really does help us to have more funding for restoration."
Rollins said the agency has been having a rough time generating operating funds.
"These are tough times, and it's very difficult to get funding right now," she said.
"Our main purpose is to maintain, restore and operate the Villa Kathrine. We operate it as a national historic home. It functions kind of as a museum. We give school tours. We also function as Quincy's tourist information center -- and we have since 1987. That's where the subsidy comes from," she said.
"Technically, we are the only tourist information center in Quincy. So it makes sense for the city to support us in some way because we are promoting the city."
Kathy Brink, program director of the Big Brother/Big Sister organization, said the $3,560 allocation from the city is essential to the agency's operations.