Annually, the Jamestown Local Development Corporation provides an allocation of funds in their budget to the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency as part of an agreement.

That amount will be going up this year.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, said JURA is asking for the allocation to be increased from $140,000 to $175,000. Surdyk said there were many reasons behind the ask for the change, and each JLDC member was provided with informational packets outlining all of the reasons, including some number crunching that Surdyk said she has done. She added that the numbers show that JURA is in the red for the work that the JLDC performs for them.

“Just looking at our kind of basic costs, numbers wise I think we are relying on some additional assistance from JLDC, and this is based on 2025 only numbers,” Surdyk said. “This is not looking forward into 2026 and all of the various initiatives that we have planned or are already underway. We do expect the additional staffing burden will actually increase, which is great, I mean it’s what we want, but we need additional capacity that we need to come to the board to request some additional funding.”

It was noted that the last time the budgeted amount given to JURA increased was about seven years ago. A question was raised that in that time if the budget has been enough to sustain them until now as they are seeing some increases. Surdyk said she did not know how her predecessor came up with a number for JURA to administer to the JLDC, and she has not had the ability to look into it. In the short term, looking at costs and what is spent for programs, Surdyk said a lot of Economic Development Coordinator, Aili Makuch’s time is spent administering loans from the JLDC or working on items related to the JLDC. There is not really any sort of tracking mechanism for these programs or to track costs, she added, except for the programs related to the state Housing and Urban Development, which is required, and that tracking is something she said they are starting to use for some others as well.

It was also noted that JURA does not pay occupancy such as rent, or for things such as IT services, and while these things do cost money the JLDC is not having to bear the burden for them. A question was then raised about how the $175,000 number in the agreement was reached.

“The $175,000 to be very honest with you, that was kind of the gap in JURA’s budget,” Surdyk said. “So that extra $35,000 we had to find it somewhere and took a look and said we have not asked for an increase in JLDC administration in seven years. That was the most reasonable place to look for it.”

Looking at the rest of the information provided to JLDC members and seeing that programs are already being operated in the red, that was more of a deep dive that was not done when the city budget was being worked on, Surdyk said. She added it was a request they felt would help close the gap in the budget while still being reasonable. Surdyk said it has also been discussed between her and other JLDC members that this agreement and the financials in general should be something that is looked at every year, so this does not happen again another seven years down the road. The increase would also not put the JLDC in a position where they would struggle to give out loans.

“Eventually, someday, if our admin continues to increase, you know we have to make sure we’re making adjustments everywhere else in order to keep the loan being able to be a revolving loan and to be able to continue administering out loans,” Surdyk said. “I don’t know how many years from now, is it 100 years, 50 years, 75 when the two lines overlap and we run out of money, but we will do that exercise so we have that for you.”

A JLDC member proposed looking at their financials and calculating from that a percentage that would go towards administrative costs such as this, similar to how federal and state grants work. This provides an understanding of what will be asked on an annual basis and incentivizes staff to find other funds that the JLDC could administer, which would allow an administrative fee to go back to the general fund. Members also suggested having some sort of structure implemented moving forward, but added that it is not something to look at this current point in time with the agreement.

The corporation then discussed this year being the final year of ARPA funds being administered, and new programs and initiatives being looked at now because of that. A few other financial items were discussed, including benefits and retirements along with other things that might fill in the ARPA gap, before the JLDC approved the increase in the administrative agreement with JURA.