The Kent Downtown Partnership is joining a growing opposition to a plan from the governor to remove funding for the Washington State Main Street Program as a way to help close the state’s $2.6 billion budget gap.
The program, which faced severe cuts last year, has a budget of only $120,000, but according to Kent Downtown Partnership Executive Director Barbara Smith, the program’s importance is not one of dollars alone. The program provides support for more than 90 organizations statewide that promote a four-point approach to preservation of historic downtowns, based on economic revitalization.
The program does not send money to cities, but offers technical support.
“It probably means that we will have to reinvent ourselves,” Smith said in an e-mail about what the loss would mean to the KDP. “What would we look like? It would be hard to say without a lot of thought and planning. The KDP Board members are hard workers and have accomplished a lot over the past several years. I doubt they will roll over and play dead.”
According to a Facebook page called “supporting Main Street in Washington State,” which was created last week to fight the cuts, the program has been “instrumental in helping local communities create 11,810 jobs, 3,721 new and expanded businesses, and private investment of $413 million in commercial infrastructure in our state’s local Main Street communities.”
A press release from KDP also states that every $1 invested in the program by the State of Washington has leveraged an average of $96 in private investment and for every $370 invested by the State, the Washington State Main Street Program has yielded one new job in a local Main Street district
“All these programs are mostly volunteer driven so the funding doesn’t go to high administrative overhead; it is going back into the communities where our small businesses are making a difference and we want to be there to help them,” Smith said, adding that the program has a very high “return on investment.”
In the 2009 round of budget cuts, the Main Street program also found itself on the block and the budget was cut from $366,000 to the current level as well as losing 1.5 employees.
A bill has been proposed in the state House of Representatives to move the program under the auspices of the Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation as a way to maintain it.
The bill, HB2704, was introduced and was scheduled for its first public hearing at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 22 in front of the House Committee on State Government and Tribal affairs.
The senate companion bill is SB6507.
For more information, visit the “Supporting Main Street in Washington State” page on Facebook. To learn more about the KDP, visit their Web site at www.kentdowntown.org.
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