Campbell County approves $15K for Gillette Reproductive Health – with stipulation

GILLETTE — Gillette Reproductive Health could get up to $15,000 in Optional 1% Sales Tax from Campbell County this fiscal year, but first, it must raise $40,000 in private donations.

Monday evening, at a public hearing for the Campbell County budget, the commissioners voted 3-2 to approve up to $15,000 in Optional 1% Sales Tax for the nonprofit, but with a big stipulation.

Gillette Reproductive Health must raise $40,000 in donations. Once it does that, the county will provide a 1:1 match for whatever is raised past that $40,000 mark, up to $15,000. That $40,000 figure came from what the organization had budgeted for fundraising.

The organization had requested $25,000, and the CARE Board, which reviews the 1% applications for social service agencies and makes recommendations for the commissioners, recommended funding the agency at $15,425.

Commissioners Kelley McCreery and Jim Ford voted in favor of going with the CARE Board’s recommendation, but Commissioners Scott Clem, Bob Jordan and Jerry Means voted against it.

Clem said he would be more in favor of providing a match for the agency to “incentivize” it to do more fundraising.

Julie Price Carroll, executive director of Gillette Reproductive Health, called the decision “deeply disappointing though regrettably not surprising.”

“(It’s) not a compromise, it’s almost an impossible hurdle designed to create the appearance of support,” she said.

The agency runs on a “shoestring budget,” Price Carroll said, and its four-person staff and five-member board don’t have the time to fully dedicate to fundraising efforts.

Despite this, she added, the organization “will not abandon our mission.”

“We’ve been here for decades and we will continue,” she said.

This story was published on July 2, 2025. 

278 words