Budget woes nearly caused the Ceres City Council months ago to can their contract but Capitol Advocacy Partners received a renewed contract last week at a reduced rate.

Since July 2023 the Washington, D.C. based firm has been helping the city pursued federal and state grants. The original contract cost was $5,600 per month, or $67,200 for the year.

In addition to the $6,000 monthly fee, the firm was charging an additional fee for grant writing, such as a flat fee of $7,500 for a grant application based on a narrative of 10 pages, or $12,500 for 10-19 pages. Her services call for meeting with department heads to determine priorities and needs and then recommending various grants.

Because the city nearly cancelled the contract to trim the budget last June, the company agreed to contract for $2,500 per month, plus grant writing fees based on application, narrative length, including the amount to not to exceed $19,500 to write an application for the California Community Resilience Center grant, appropriating $42,000 from the general fund.

“I think it’s important to have some grant writing service assistance, especially right now with the limited funding that we have,” said Councilwoman Cerina Otero.

Capitol Advocacy has snagged over $3.4 million for the city of Ceres, which Otero said “that was eight grants since 2023. So that is a big deal for our city.”

A recent success was the snagging of a $998,344 cannabis enforcement grant.

The firm is also pursuing a California park development grant to making improvements for Independence and Roeding Heights parks. Capitol Advocacy said $200,000 to $8.5 million is available for applicants depending on what improvements are identified.

Ceres resident John Warren questioned why the city was being offered “such a good deal,” and suggested the firm was overcharging the city for the past two years.

“So maybe going forward for the next six months, they should be doing it for free and we can save a couple of bucks,” said Warren.

Interim City Manager Steve Williams said the fee for Capitol Advocacy to write a grant application of one to nine pages is $7,500. The fee for an application between 10 and 19 pages is $12,500. If the grant application is between 20 and 26 pages, that fee is $19,500.

Williams said grant writing is “beyond the technical skills of staff.”

He said the firm agreed to reduce the rates because “they recognize that we are in a difficult financial situation.”

He also added that Capitol Advocacy “has a very strong success in recommending grants that they believe that we would be highly competitive in.”

The rate of $2,500 per month is over the next six months at which time the city will either terminate the agreement or renegotiate for a new rate.

Dana DeBeaumont of Capitol Advocacy said the California Community Resilience Center grant would add resilience features for the Ceres Community Center “in the event of heat or disaster or different kinds of emergency situations for that facility.

“We usually win the grants,” said DeBeaumont, who added that for every dollar the city invested in Capitol Advocacy had a $26 return.

“And if we don’t think you can win, we’ll tell you because we want to be sensitive to your cost.

“And once someone becomes a client, we view them as part of a family. And so as family goes through hard times, we feel that we want to bear the toughness too and kind of go through it with you. So, that’s why we reduced our fee and we have reduced it a couple of times for different clients because it’s the right thing to do.”

The council voted 4-1 to approve the contract with Councilman James Casey voting no.