Vancouver may cut funding for Columbia Springs, a $50,000 hit to the nonprofit

The city of Vancouver has proposed cutting funding for environmental education nonprofit Columbia Springs in December.

The organization, which hosts workshops, nature walks and student field trips, is facing a $50,000 cut to its annual funding. The cut, proposed in the city’s recommended budget published Tuesday, would come from the city’s Solid Waste Fund, which has supported Columbia Springs for more than a decade. Columbia Springs’ contract with the city ends in December, which is when the funding would lapse.

“I’m going to do my best at what nonprofits are good at, which is to do more with less. We will do our very best at what we continue to provide,” Columbia Springs Executive Director Katherine Cory said. “We touch so many different people in the city. We serve about 6,000 students a year. The city’s funding, although specific to certain things, will have a ripple effect on what our budget can do.”

The city is one of the nonprofit’s largest funders, Cory said. The potential reduction amounts to 10 percent of Columbia Springs’ annual operating budget.

Cory said Columbia Springs receives an additional $10,000 from the city through a different fund, but she has not yet received confirmation on whether that will be cut as well.

The city announced in June it is facing a projected $43 million deficit for the 2025-26 budget year due to inflation and slowing growth.

Watershed Alliance of Southwest Washington, another environmental nonprofit in Vancouver, may lose all of its funding from the city with the proposed budget.

Watershed Alliance has received $150,000 in annual funding from the city since 2008, but the city may let its contract with the nonprofit lapse at the end of the year.

Over time, the city reduced its offering of services similar to those provided by both Columbia Springs and Watershed Alliance, city spokeswoman Laura Shepard said in an email Friday.

“Factors that went into developing the proposed budget reductions include keeping core services intact and minimizing direct service impact on the community,” Shepard said. “We value both organizations’ work in the community and their partnership over the years.”

The Vancouver City Council will consider the proposed budget in workshops and hearings before they adopt it. The city is hosting an operating budget workshop Oct. 14, followed by a public hearing for the 2025-26 biennial budget Nov. 18.

The funding from the city has supported Columbia Springs’ key programs, including summer camps, Nature Days, guided walks and scholarships for children from low-income families. Without the $50,000, Columbia Springs will have to scale back certain programs and scholarship support, Cory said.

Columbia Springs is asking community members whose children have attended a field trip, camp or event to reach out to the Vancouver City Council to share their personal stories.

“We’re asking families and individuals to speak up about the importance of Columbia Springs and the programs we offer,” Cory said in a news release. “With enough voices, we hope the city council will reconsider and find an alternative funding source.”