Mayor Eddie Sundquist and Jamestown Community College Foundation Executive Director Maria Kindberg presented to Council a shared services agreement plan to hire a grant writer for the city and Jamestown Community College. Sundquist said the city could really benefit from a grant writer,
“We’re finding many of our departments are spending a very strong amount of time to write grants and it is in many cases impeding from their general day to day work. And we’re also finding more and more grants are coming up through both the State and Federal level really ever than before.”
Sundquist said the city didn’t necessarily need a full-time person and neither did Jamestown Community College,
“In many cases, the City of Jamestown and the Community College aren’t normally going for the same pools of funding. They’re usually a little bit different, many times the same categories and similar agencies, but not necessarily the same pools.”
Kindberg said the college has had a difficult time attracting the caliber of grant writer candidates they need,
“And we think that that’s been based partly on the fact that our salary range has been in the medium range for this position. And while we’ve had a number of candidates apply for positions they’ve always gone where they’ve been offered more money. There seems to be a shortage of local grant writers and so they have some flexibility in determining where they’re going to work.”
Under the 2-year agreement, the City and College would split the salary costs by 50-percent. The salary range is projected to be from $70 to 90-thousand dollars, with $20-thousand dollars being paid by the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency. The grant writer would report to both JCC and the City, but would be a non-union employee in the Mayor’s Office.
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