County hands off cannabis tax grants

When the Worcester County Commissioners last week elected to have a Local Management Board manage the distribution of proceeds from the county’s share of the cannabis tax, it wasn’t as if they had other options that made sense.

Although some applicants for a share of that new source of revenue had hoped the commissioners would retain grant-making authority, the commissioners wisely decided they would be better off without it.

Clearly, some applicants felt their chances of success would have been better with the commissioners — people they know or with whom they already had a working relationship — instead of having to introduce themselves and their proposals to an entirely new body.

After all, serving on the local management board might just be anyone, including those who could be unfamiliar with the nature of the services provided by the applicant.

Understandably, the ability to pick the winners from the pool of applicants for a share of the cannabis money has a certain amount of appeal for any office holder. But as County Administrator Weston Young pointed out, there’s more to this grant-issuing business than deciding who gets what.

Per the state’s enabling legislation, these grants can’t just be made to any worthwhile nonprofit organization, they need to be used to help areas that fall within the guidelines set by the Office of Social Equity. According to its website, that means “community-based initiatives that benefit low-income communities and those disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of cannabis laws.”

As broad as that description is, it’s easy to see how the award of these grants will need to be preceded by detailed evaluations of each proposal to ensure that these decisions reflect the Office of Social Equity’s intentions, whatever they may be.

Given the absence of hard and fast rules, the commissioners are right to stay out of it and leave the business of issuing cannabis tax grants up to a special panel designated to oversee it.