Proposed budget cuts to the Sioux Falls city budget could hit a homeless shelter hard. Under the current plan, the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House would see its contribution from the city cut in half.



Tracy Turbak, finance director for the City of Sioux Falls, says the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House is getting $60,000 in the proposed 2018 budget. He says in 2017, the city council decided to give the shelter $120,000.



Surprisingly, Executive Director Chad Campbell says he isn’t frustrated with the proposed city budget.



“We work with partners who have funding changes and things like that all the time, so I’m very used to change, and you have to be very adaptable and very nimble to be in this kind of business,” Campbell said.



The shelter’s annual operating budget is about $1 million, and Campbell is confident the shelter will continue to meet the need.



“We’ll just continue to press forward, and we’ll continue to work our fundraising strategies and grand proposals and things like that to continue to meet our need of our budget,” Campbell said.



Campbell says that in 2016, 1,433 different people used the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House, and 1,034 people have already been helped this year.



“The rationale for the sixty thousand in the proposed 2018 budget is that that should be sufficient to cover all of the utility expenses for the Bishop Dudley House for a full year,” Turbak said.



Turbak is careful to praise the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House’s work.



“It’s certainly not any sort of a value judgement on the services these groups provide,” Turbak said. “I think everyone agrees that the BDH provides an incredibly valuable service to the community.”



At issue, he says, is where taxpayer money should go.



“It’s really a question of whether city tax dollars ought to be used to support that to the degree that they are currently,” Turbak said.



As for the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House, Campbell is confident the budget shortfall will be filled.



“We’ll continue to work on various grants that we have available, and we’ll continue to do the best we can with the resources that we have without compromising any type of services offered to the guests,” Campbell said.



The city council has final say over the budget. Turbak says he “won’t speculate on what the council will do.”





