Are you insane?!
The memo is below. It ignores on very huge, glaring, issue. Perhaps that is purposeful, I don’t know but gimme a break. Every other year, each committee meets about 10 times during the funding process. Usually in July and August when every is trying to be on vacation these two committees are walking around with several three ring binders full of proposals and having hearing after hearing on the funding process. These dedicated community members make heart wrenching decisions about what services the community needs and there is usually double the amount of requests as there is money. And they can’t fund it all.
So, now lets think about one committee doing that instead of two? I suppose they could split it up and do half one year and half another year, but that really would defeat the purpose of making the decisions together. And some years the budget might have more money than others and how to decide which ones to do when would be a huge mess. But otherwise, the hearings will be twice as long, the work will be doubled and there won’t be time to fit in that many meetings. And, the part that makes me sick, is to look around the room and see all those executive directors sitting around wasting time and waiting to speak. Some committees try to time it out so you get scheduled for a slot, but really, if you are doing your job, you have to be there and sit through it to hear what others are saying and what the committee members are interested in. Currently, only a few of us have to deal with both processes, but this would make everyone have to put in that much time – if they are doing their jobs.
And, I hate to say this, but . . . I think there needs to be more looking at the actual outcomes, not what people say they are going to do, and determining if the money that goes to those outcomes are the priorities. And they should be looking at which organizations give them the most for their money. I still feel like that has nothing to do with the decisions. I’ve also seen them do a needs analysis. They should look at what the needs are in the community, in an academic kind of way, and look at where the money goes.
Finally, Tenant Resource Center is one of the agencies that has had our contract combined. We get over $50K (tenant and landlord counseling and education and outreach) from Office of Community Services funding and $5K (mediation) from CDBG. We spend most of our reporting on the $5K because it is federal money (the paperwork for this small amount of money almost makes it not worth having) and our other larger program is mostly ignored. In fact, they don’t even want to see the reports we used to do, they don’t need them for HUD so they are irrelevant. It’s heartbreaking. We have a wealth of information about what is going on in the city about tenants and landlords and no one wants to look at it. (To be fair, I don’t think our reports looked at in Community Services either since we kept getting shuffled around and didn’t seem to fit anywhere.) Additionally, when they slammed our contracts together, they applied all the federal requirements to our city money – and even tho I raised the issue, they said it was easier to do it this way. Easier for whom? Seriously, considering the split above, this is not easier and the result is absurd.
Anyways, that’s my little rant for today, there is more, much more, but this isn’t about TRC, its about the general process and I only use it as an example. We’ll do what we have to do no matter how much we get jerked around by funders – its the mission that is important, that is what we do.
Here’s the memo – which of course they don’t put with the agenda, so you have to go to the meeting to get the info . . . its so manipulative and not transparent its really disturbing, but its the way this department operates.
At its December meeting the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) committee directed staff to draft a memo that would discuss the merging of the CDBG and Community Services Committee (CSC) into one committee and bring it to the January meeting. The CSC followed with asking that I bring the same memo to its January meeting.
Historically there was a CDBG Office that had a close working relationship with the CDBG committee and an Office of Community Services that had the same with the CSC. For decades, great work was produced by dedicated staff that funneled directly into these committees. Veteran staff report that this worked as long as the issue was clearly
confined to the domain of one of the offices and corresponding committee. What was problematic was when there was a debate over where an issue belonged, which approach to solving it was most appropriate and who would decide funding related to solving that issue. This was more of an issue when it was time for the two-year fi.mding cycle. In addition to there not being an obvious way to resolve this ongoing fi•iction, there were unintended consequences that developed which included: difficulty in coming together over city issues that related to both offices, a tendency to develop offices/staff that worked in isolation from each other and a Jack of staff cohesiveness.In 2008 the two offices (Community Services and Community Development Block Grant) were combined with the Senior Center to form the Community Development Division. In effect, the city bureaucratic organization changed and the committee structure remained the same. The Division continues to staff 6 committees and there is an effort to keep all committees infonned of what the other committees are working on. Over the years there have been internal staff discussions as well as conversations among some policy makers as to whether there should be a merger of the CSC and CDBG committees to form a Community Development Committee. In the 2010 two year funding cycle, an ad hoc Conference Committee was formed (made up of members of both committees) as a work around to decide funding around program topics that resided in both committees (neighborhoods and workforce).
Advantages of merging the CSC and CDBG committees:
• Alignment of committee structure to match the Division organization.
• Better coordination of decision-making as it relates to the Community
Development Division. One committee with Division oversight.
• Coordinated funding decisions.
• Enhanced ability to act in a coordinated manner on city issues.
• Strong message of working together.
• Less staff time spent on committees and duplicating work.Issues:
• Unintended message oflack of appreciation of citizen committee members.
• Potential loss of expertise that currently exists on the committees.
• Identifying a viable process to make the change. Recommendation:• Propose to combine the two committees to form the Community Development
Committee (CDC).
• Take the proposal to both the CSC and CDBG for approval.
• If approved, allow current members of both the CDBG and CSC to remain on the CDC at least until their current term is up. This retains needed expertise as we approach a funding cycle and sends a message of appreciation.
• Over time shrink the size of the committee as terms expire to a viable size.
• Create the CDC in April in time for the funding cycle.
Note: It’s really hard for people who are funded by these groups to speak up. I have a bumper sticker in my office that says “don’t tell the truth, you’ll lose your funding”. Well, long ago, I decided I couldn’t do this job if that was the case, so I’m saying this, but believe me – its difficult.
Last funding session I tried to speak my mind with the committees and many of the members I respect were mad at me for being critical of their unfair and screwed up process because they had invested so much time in it. And when I filed an ethics complaint against a member who worked for an agency that was getting funding and made motions to give that agency more funding – I drew more anger. (By the way, the ethics committee says its ok to sit on the funding committees and vote for and give more money to your agency if you only work for them part-time. I’ve been meaning to find out if I could get one of my part-time employees on these funding committees, it’d be great to have that kind of advocate on there come funding time. Just kidding, I couldn’t ethically do that! But apparently, others can.)
Also, I tried to work with the CDBG committee on the affordable housing trust fund and that was a miserable experience. And I had to back down and not fight with them for fear of losing my funding. That was also heartbreaking. I’ve never had to do that, but I decided to walk away from the fight because of that fear.
Finally, I still have to work with the staff who monitor our contracts – I used to have a buffer with my program director, but we no longer have a program director so its now my job. So this makes it a little harder to now speak up. ‘Nuff said.
I hate this last part of all of this.
