Crawford gives boost to Questa
To grant 2nd Legacy request
DAVE GONG | The Journal Gazette
A little more than a month after Fort Wayne's Legacy Joint Funding Committee denied a request from the Questa Education Foundation, the nonprofit will have another chance this month to secure some future funding.
City Councilman John Crawford, R-at large, will introduce a bill next week seeking funding for the Questa Legacy Scholars program. Crawford, who will leave the council at the end of December, is a longtime supporter of Questa. In an interview Wednesday, Crawford said he's donated his City Council salary to Questa for 20 years – a total of about $400,000.
The proposal will be discussed Dec. 17.
“I think it's something that's been really good for the community,” Crawford said. “If you look across the country, every city's destiny is controlled by educational attainment and building a workforce to attract the jobs of the future and that ties into getting more and more people college educated.”
Crawford said Questa's Legacy Scholars program does a good job of not only helping students earn a degree but keeping them in Allen County and northeast Indiana. The Legacy Scholars program, Crawford added, is especially beneficial for the Fort Wayne area.
For the past five years, the Legacy Scholars program was paid for out of the city's Legacy Fund, which is composed of money generated by the lease and sale of Fort Wayne's old power utility. If approved, Crawford's proposal would again use the Legacy Fund to pay for the program.
Not leaving Questa in a lurch for the next academic year is the main goal of Crawford's proposal. Although the Legacy Joint Funding Committee declined to vote on Questa's grant request, the city's rules regarding the Legacy Fund state that the mayor or any City Council member can circumvent the committee and introduce a funding proposal directly to City Council.
Crawford said he's flexible on the funding amount and the time period. It's possible, he said, that the council could agree to fund the program for another year to allow Mayor Tom Henry and the City Council that will be sworn in Jan. 1 to work together to find an alternative funding solution.
“I don't want to leave (Questa) with a gap. The Legacy Committee threw them a curve without even taking a vote,” Crawford said.
According to the Questa website, the Legacy Scholars program was created “to promote education and employment opportunities for high school seniors and returning college students who are residents of Fort Wayne.” The program distributes $200,000 a year in forgivable student loans to area students. The Legacy Scholars program uses the same low-interest loans as the Questa Scholars and Contemporary Scholars program, the Questa website states.
To be eligible, students must reside within the Fort Wayne city limits, must be working toward a certificate, associate or bachelor's degree and attend an Indiana not-for-profit college or university. Students must also plan on living in Allen County after college graduation and must plan to work in northeast Indiana. There are also requirements for grade-point average and SAT or ACT scores.
If students who receive a loan from the Legacy Scholars program live and work in the Fort Wayne area for five years, Questa will forgive 50% of that debt, said Marc Levy, Questa's executive director. If students graduate from one of Questa's regional partner schools, that school will pay 25% of the students' loans.
“One of the most important assets we can invest in right now is people, because that helps them get livable wage jobs, but it also helps create the talent that employers need so that instead of competing for talent and taking talent from each other, the talent pool grows,” Levy said. “Sixty percent of the workforce has no post-secondary education. There is a lot of underdeveloped talent, as well as the kids coming out of high school.”
Money for Legacy Scholars is running out, Levy said, and it's unclear whether the program will have any money for the 2021 school year unless more funding is secured. Regardless, the Legacy Joint Funding Committee at its Nov. 14 meeting declined to recommend Legacy money to support the program for another four years. Questa's proposal failed after no committee member offered a motion to support it.
Although several committee members expressed support for Questa's mission, they said if the city wants to continue its participation, it should find room in the annual budget rather than the Legacy Fund. A major reason offered was that Questa has a continual need for funding to support the Legacy Scholars program.
Levy said extending the city's participation would sustain the Legacy Scholars program long enough for loan repayments to begin. Those repayments, along with donor support, means the Legacy Scholars program can become self-sustaining, eliminating the need for large requests from the Legacy Fund.
Crawford's proposal isn't the only Legacy Fund request planned for the Dec. 17 City Council agenda. A $500,000 grant for Science Central, which has been held up since April, is also expected to be discussed. The council is expected to vote Tuesday to remove the item from the table and place it on the agenda for the following week.
The grant to Science Central would fund a portion of a $2.4 million planetarium project at the Clinton Street facility. The exhibit will be used for educational programming to increase public engagement on space exploration. The request was held at the behest of City Councilman Paul Ensley, R-1st, amid concerns about the Electric Works project south of downtown Fort Wayne.
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