The Selma City Council approved funding a $194,000 grant for AmeriCorps during Thursday night’s meeting.

The grant will place 44 young people in Selma for a year, tutoring students and doing other community service orientated jobs.

Angela Benjamin, Bennie Ruth Crenshaw, Michael Johnson, Susan Keith, Sam Randolph and B.L. Tucker voted to proceed with the grant, while Cecil Williamson and Greg Bjelke voted against it. Council President Corey Bowie abstained, saying after the meeting that he didn’t have enough information to make a decision Thursday night.

The total grant is $684,000, which would have to be paid up front and then reimbursed, according to Henry Thompson in planning and development. Thompson said not all the amount would be due at one time though and could be paid quarterly.

At the last council meeting, City Treasurer Ronita Wade said paying the grant upfront could cause some cash flow problems down the road.

Williamson estimates that about $500,000 has been already budgeted for grant matches in next year’s budget.

“We are going to have a cash flow problem. That’s what we are going to have,” Williamson said. “When we have to front that much money, there is no way we have that much money lying around. I think this is bad financially.”

Crenshaw said some of those grants have not been finalized and may not come through.

“We already have a grant that’s been approved, and we need to pay. We have other grants that are pending and may never happen,” Crenshaw said.

A majority of the council voted to make the grant a funding priority at its last meeting. Benjamin wanted to make it clear that the grant was a priority among several others.

“People ran with it and said the city council made AmeriCorps the priority. I was at the meeting, and I heard you say on the priority list,” Benjamin said, speaking to Crenshaw.

“The council did not say AmeriCorps was the priority. We said AmeriCorps was on the priority list for 2016/2017.”