Future of the City Could Be Decided Here

Input needed by February 1 regarding a potential Community Services/Development reorganization. I’m so glad the this Mayor is asking, “how can we do better?” As opposed to Mayor Dave who asked “how can I get these people off my back?”

Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:02:06 -0600
Subject: The Community Development Division Organizational Structure

Dear Common Council Members, Agencies funded through the Community Development Division and Members of Community Development Committees:

On my “to-do” list for this year is a review of the organizational structure of the services in the Community Development Division. With the announced retirement from City government of the Division Director, Bill Clingan, we need to examine this issue as soon as possible.

I am looking for your thoughts and recommendations about possible changes in structure that can improve services to City residents. Please reply to this message by February 2nd.

This review will not affect this year’s funding process.

The Existing Division Structure Adopted in 2008
City of Madison Ordinance Section 3.12 (7) defines the structure and mission of the Community Development Division. The Division includes:
the Community Development Block Grant office, the Senior Center, and the Office of Community Services. Under the direction of the Community Development Division Director, this division is responsible for: (a) planning, developing and implementing a variety of programs, services and activities of interest to older people, through the Senior Center, (b) planning, developing, implementing and evaluating community services and human services including services purchased by the City from non-profit agencies, through the Office of Community Services, and (c) promoting healthy neighborhoods and a viable urban community through support of effective community oriented programs including services purchased by the City from private non-profit agencies through the Community Development Block Grant Office.

In addition, to the services listed above, the ordinance also places child care in the Office of Community Services. The Division now includes a new HUD funded Energy Services program reporting to the Director.

Here is a link to City of Madison ordinances where you can find Section 3.12 creating the Department of Planning and Community and Economic Development and the duties of other Divisions in the Department:

http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientID=50000&stateID=49&statename=Wisconsin

A current Division organization chart is attached.

Possibilities to Consider

Here are some of the possibilities to consider for the Division’s organizational structure:
· Make no changes.
· Make changes in the role of the Division Director or other changes within the existing Division structure.
· Child care, community services, the senior center and senior services could be in a separate division from CDBG and HUD funded programs.
· CDBG, the Energy Services program and HUD funded programs could be moved into the Economic Development Division.
· Community Services and/or CDBG could report directly to the Mayor as they once did.
· Housing programming or community services could be combined with the CDA.
· Community Services and Child Care could be placed in the City/County Health Department.

Feel free to either make specific recommendations or simply raise issues that you think are critical in thinking these matters through.

Sincerely,

Paul R. Soglin
Mayor
City of Madison

Another seriously dropped ball. I tried to ask some of these questions when the whole reorganization was going on, but by that point the Mayor and I weren’t talking, the council didn’t want to talk about anything and I think were grossly uninformed (not all their fault, we needed staff to speak up, but they couldn’t or didn’t) and there were a bunch of winks and nods about how this was being done to solve a personnel issue. This is all the result of another ill-conceived Mayor Dave idea – that wasn’t thought through by the larger community.

My quick recommendations:
– Stop this informal merger of the CDBG and Community Services offices. Yes childcare, seniors and community services should be their own division and work closely with the Housing Operations portion of the CDA. And childcare should stay in Community Services, not Public Health (tho maybe more coordination with the county on that program and perhaps some contributions from the county.)
– Do not merge the CDBG and Office of Community Services Committees, but find a way to deal with less requests for funding each year by moving to a rotating 3 year contract cycle (not that government contracts really mean anything – since they can stop funding you anytime they want.)
– Stop applying CDBG rules to GPR dollars because it is easier for staff to just have one contract, it creates stupid reporting requirements and ignores what should be reported.
– I’m not sure we need a Director of Community Development, but if we have one, they should be integrated into the Planning Department and considered part of that team in a meaningful way. Reporting Directly to the Mayor is appealing with this mayor, not so much with the last one, so I’m not sure how to answer that. I think true integration into the Planning Department is better. When Steve Cover was before the council getting confirmed to be the Direction of Planning and Community and Economic Development, he didn’t even know what the Community Development Division was . . . likely because it was not a priority of those doing the hire.
– Energy Services? Not sure.
– Housing should be combined with CDBG office. Not the CDA, but they need to work closely with CDA. Again, we need to get rid of these silos and have the Planning and Community and Economic Development to act like a department – CDA and CDBG often seem to be in competition with each other and CDA sees CDBG as a funding source instead of a partner, that needs to stop.

Finally, that new grantwriter position (congrats Judy Olson), the new Housing Position and the Neighborhood Resource Team Coordinator position that got put in Public Health all need to be in the Planning and Community and Economic Development Department and act like they are a department working together on all the issues.

You can’t have a planning department that doesn’t think about planning for affordable housing, senior housing, what community resources will be needed once the physical environment is built. These tend to be afterthoughts. The CDA, CDBG, Community Services and Senior Center need to be considered the same as the Economic Development Division, the Planning Division, the Building Inspection Unit, the Historic Preservation Planner, Transportation Planning, Zoning, etc. They’re not just those people mostly on the 2nd floor of the Madison Municipal Building that are mostly ignored and staff don’t really know what they do, except take up a lot of time during they budget with those pesky non-profits. They all need to be working together.

We will get nowhere on housing planning if it is assigned to one person in one department somewhere. Or nowhere. We will continue to see our poverty rates increase if we don’t think through what we are doing in a more meaningful way when we plan our city. Planning needs to think about housing, transportation and services – including grocery stores, where the jobs are, etc – when planning the housing units and we need to make sure that we are building neighborhoods that have a variety of housing types and price points. And we need to have bus services that go to these neighborhoods. The planning department does a good job of getting some of these things on paper, but they aren’t really discussed with the staff we have at the city that are the experts in dealing with low-income populations – that make up 17% (official federal government poverty rate) and more of the city. And they usually are modifiable by developers with different ideas who cater to the upper middle class. And the council, well, they have tried to just stay out of the whole thing it seems. They want to have the staff and committees just deal with community services and not be involved. And then give more money to the police department when they end up picking up the pieces. Well, I think that is the direct opposite of what they should be doing, they should be providing direction on what our priorities in community services should be instead of being a rubber stamp and dealing with the fallout. And if I hear from one more alder that this is not their priority and they just have to deal with their neighborhood issues I may scream. What, these issues don’t effect your neighborhoods? Where the hell do you live and who are you representing? I guess that 17% doesn’t vote, so doesn’t matter? Will they matter if its 25%? 30%? Do you really think continuing to attempt to build our way out of this to attract tax base is really going to be the answer? I think its much more complicated than that, you can’t govern with blinders on. We need a more balanced approach.

Ok, I could rant on with this perhaps seemingly insider stuff, but I’ll stop, for now. Looks like this is something I may have more posts on in the future. This is an important issue, but I’m not sure it will get the attention it deserves – but this could make the difference for the city for years to come. I hope people pay attention.