How is the available budget allocated?

1. Distribution across the islands

The first step is to distribute the subsidy budget across the three islands:

Island	Amount
Bonaire	$ 550,000
St Eustatius	$ 275,000
Saba	$ 275,000
Total	$ 1,100,000

If the budget allocated to a specific island is not fully utilised, the remainder can be reallocated to applicants on the other islands.

2. Ranking based on different categories of monuments

In the allocation of available funding to each island, whether the monument is situated within a protected townscape plays a key role. On Bonaire, the governing body of the island has designated the historic centres of Rincon en Kralendijk as protected townscape. On St Eustatius, the same applies to the historic centre of Oranjestad. The executive councils of Bonaire and St Eustatius have stated that they would like to see the budget for their respective islands go to the protected townscapes. For that reason, monuments inside a protected townscape will take precedence over monuments outside a protected townscape.

Within these two categories, the ranking also differentiates between protected monuments and other monuments. A monument is considered protected if it is listed in a register of monuments maintained by the public body. There are protected monuments on Bonaire and St Eustatius. Saba does not (yet) have any monuments with protected status.

This results in the following ranking for granting subsidies:
Category 1: protected monuments situated within a protected townscape
Category 2: other monuments situated within a protected townscape
Category 3: other protected monuments
Category 4: other monuments

All four categories apply on Bonaire and St Eustatius. On these islands, it may be very unlikely for the owners of monuments in categories 3 and 4 to be granted subsidies. On Saba, however, only the fourth category applies.

The executive council of the applicable public body indicates which category the monument is classed in. This is specified in a written statement appended to and submitted with the subsidy application. For more information about this, see: Preparing a subsidy application.

3. Ranking based on total estimated costs of application

It is possible that the (remaining) budget will not be sufficient to cover all the subsidy applications for monuments within the same category. In that case, all subsidy applications within the same category will be ranked according to the total estimated costs of the application. This is based on all the costs included in the estimate. Applications with lower total estimated costs will take precedence over applications with higher total estimated costs.

This step looks at the total amount of the estimate submitted with the application, not the preservation costs that are eligible for subsidy. For that reason, it is important for applicants not to include costs in their estimate that are (clearly) not eligible for subsidy based on the guidelines. This is inadvisable, since it would automatically put the application in a less favourable position.

However, the project does still need to meet or exceed the minimum amount of $ 25,000 in preservation costs that are eligible for subsidy, or the application will be rejected. See: How much subsidy can I request?