The Eau Claire City Council, or more accurately, its Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee, is considering reducing or maybe even cutting much of the the city’s “community enhancement” funding. The cuts would effect eight of the ten nonprofit organizations relying to some degree on city money. The cuts would take place in the 2010 budget. From the Leader-Telegram ...

• The two organizations receiving the bulk of that money - Visit Eau Claire (formerly Chippewa Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau) and Eau Claire Regional Arts Council - will retain their funding because of contracts previously signed with the city. Those groups will receive $787,500 of the $897,300 of community enhancement dollars the city will spend this year.
• But eight other groups, ranging from the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp to the Chippewa Valley Theatre Guild to the Eau Claire Municipal Band, could see their city funding cut or eliminated.

Other organizations include the Children's Museum of Eau Claire, the Chippewa Valley Museum, the Chippewa Valley Symphony, the Community Beautification Association, and the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra. Some of these organizations rely on city funding for the majority (or in some cases all) of their funding. Kind of an eye-opener, huh? So, for example, if the funding cuts become real, we’d no longer have a Municipal Band. This isn’t something the City Council wants to do, but it might have to. Check out the L-T article for a breakdown on how much  money each of these organizations gets.