As story lines go, Spokane’s struggle to make life bearable for the needy is familiar and discouraging. Too many demands, not enough money.

No pleasant surprises broke the pattern Monday when the Human Services Advisory Board gave its annual report to the City Council. There was a twist, though, and it was a troubling one.

In its futile attempt to spread limited funds among more than four dozen nonprofit organizations, the advisory board turned down six. Not because the board deemed those programs inadequate, ineffective or deficient, but because the applicants had stumbled over paperwork obstacles. A missing résumé. An omitted job description.

None of the agencies that asked for city funds got everything requested, and the grants would have been even smaller if the rejected programs had been included. The advisory board was expected to divide an insufficient sum into a set of allocations that would most nearly address overwhelming social need.

If the advisory board had considered all the applications, evaluated them on their merits and then recommended funding for some programs but not others – a practice sometimes used in the past – that would have been defensible.

Instead, however, the board relied on technicalities to eliminate otherwise acceptable proposals and gave all the others at least something. One of those shut out is the Community Health Association of Spokane, the main provider of health care to some 20,000 uninsured people in Spokane. After receiving $124,000 from the city last year, CHAS drew a zero this year because Executive Director Peg Hopkins’ résumé was not part of the application. She’s been on the job for a decade, by the way. True, it was careless of whoever prepared the request to leave the document out, but was it a fatal flaw? The advisory board should have notified CHAS representatives and let them correct the oversight. That would have shown an intent to reach a decision based on merit.

Because of difficult economic conditions, Spokane’s inability to care for those in need is woeful. On a per-capita basis, this city spends less than a tenth of what Seattle spends to care for the indigent.

At the beginning of this decade, the City Council agreed to dedicate at least 1 percent of its budget to human services. It took the threat of an initiative petition earmarking three times that much to get the city to keep its promise, if only briefly. Under current circumstances, little can be done to change any of that, which is why it’s essential to scrutinize proposals, weigh them against the most urgent needs and steer sorely limited funds into hands that can use them most effectively. That’s what the advisory board should have done in this case, but didn’t.

Next year, City Hall should design a workable procedure and insist that the advisory board follow it. Surely, a panel that turned down a major human services program over a missing résumé would honor that expectation.