Again, from that lovely HHN meeting, a second of three or four or five issues. When cutting the CAC $10,000 for either food or clothing programs, the county decided that the only clothing program should be cut and that instead, let the churches do it. When it comes to poverty issues and homeless issues, it seems the county will try to find any way they can not to be responsible for vital programs in our community.
Ok, so I’ll do the discussion first, then I have some comments and comparisons to what is going on in the homeless community in general. This was a budget amendment HHN – 2.
Describing the motion
Bill Clausius says this is a simple amendment, you probably heard of the community justice restorative project, this is a program, a means, a model, that has been used for a long time, done successfully on the east coast, the model does work, I can tell you from my background in corrections that I know of situations where this has been very useful. The idea is to divert juvenile offenders from the criminal justice system, the thing is you need to get the approval of the criminal justice system. Ron Johnson, the director of the program is the head hancho, the one thing that was missing was the funding for the initiative, there is a number of things that they intend to spend funds on to assist the juveniles or almost offenders. I don’t have a lot more information about it, I know I was told the clothing and food distribution fund that it comes from was being utilized. Jeremy Levin seconds the motion.
Jeremy says that he can answer questions instead of Lynn Green because he did help Supervisor Clausius and Sheila Stubbs with this amendment, the county doesn’t normally fund clothing and distribution, its $20,000 that was in the CAC line for Community Action Coalition. He thinks CAC is a good program, you saw that the Executive’s budget added $25,000 for their funding of ebit card so that low income food share can buy more fresh produce at farmer’s market. You also see in the justification on these discretionary funds that some of it will be used for shirts and ties or food to prepare these youths throughout their process with the criminal justice system and life matters. Lynn, want to add anything to that.
Lynn Green, Director of Human Services says “It’s actually young adults”. I just wanna mention that. One of the guys asks what CAC is, Green says it is the Community Action Coalition. Lots of talking all at once, there is a drafting error they will fix.
Questions for staff
Jenni Dye asks to clarify what the current use of the clothing and food distribution line is used for? Green says it is $20,000 and it has been in the budget and its used for food and clothing (someone in the audience is making a lot of noise and I can’t hear what is going on). Dye asks if it is currently all being used. Green says yes.
Ronn Ferrell asks if the Community Restorative Justice Court is in our purview or PP&J. Green says it is in our department.
Heidi Wegleitner asks Green to talk more about the clothing and food distribution program, who it serves, what it costs. Green says she doesn’t know the total cost, they contribute $20,000 that they have worked with them to talk about how to split that. This is the only place that we fund any clothing and food distribution in our homeless services network. She knows, having attempted to cut this herself over the years, that the food distribution money is used to give to other food pantries to buy food from Second Harvest, so that has been carried on over the years. The clothing distribution they operate, they do clothing drives and distribute the clothing. Wegleitner asks if you have to pay for either of the clothes or food. Green says she doesn’t believe so. One of the guys asks if they have a store, Green says she thinks so. (bk: She seems to be guessing at a lot of these answers and struggling) She says “to her knowledge it is free clothing”. There are different people shouting out from the audience that its a free bag per week, a $1 per week, its free, you have to register, etc. etc.
The churches can do it.
Green offers, without being asked. “My feeling over the years in regard to this has been that certainly this is a really valuable service, but I feel as though clothing distribution can be and is handled in many many places throughout the county, for example there is a clothing distribution site that used to be run out of our Stoughton office and is not being run out of, taken on, adopted by a church. You know there is the Koats for Kids campaign, and that this is a really good thing for the faith based and other communities to take on and that there are numerous clothing distribution sites throughout the county and so I really feel that the need for our dollars to go for clothing distribution really isn’t there.”
Continuation of discussion
Jeremy Levin says that this was an item that was both on list of what was mandated, what was highly valued and what was valued. When we were presented with the department requests, the line that was $60,0000 (This isn’t making sense to me whatever he is saying and there is again audience noise).
Green says that if it is helpful she can add that when they created the community court last year there were concerns about the amount of discretionary money and there is $15,000 in there, but at the time it was $15,000 discretionary and $15,000 for operations and she said that we could pick up for the $15,000 for operations but couldn’t pick up the discretionary funds and they are a concern, we believe that a number of services that the young adults that the program will be working with really need things that we don’t have other sources of funding for. We could keep $15,000 for a whole year and its not going to effect them much in terms of discretionary funds, so its a concern . . . she trails off.
Wegleitner asks if CAC has been notified of this amendment. No.
Wegleitner moves to table to the next meeting. Seconded by Dye.
Wegleitner says her concerns are the same as last time, she is really a fan of the community justice restorative courts, as she is for restorative justice initiatives overall, she just feels that CAC should be given information and an opportunity to comment on this amendment, again we are taking money, and this time this is even a more compelling case for the motion because these Lynn has reported that the money does all get used. We are talking about people who really are in need, homeless folks and other very vulnerable folks and she knows that the restorative justice court is important as well, she just thinks they should give CAC and opportunity to weigh in.
Levin says in terms of process they will still have additional opportunities to weigh in, in terms of CAC, I like the work they do, but they got $25,000 for the ebit cards and we heard that the clothing and food line item has about $8,000 for distribution of food and at the point in time when he was looking through, we have to make choices, he thinks everyone will understand and he thinks those that were on the list of what was required and wasn’t probably should have had an idea that those lines might be tempting or things that we might alter, so I will just say that I hope the committee will not table because he would really like to continue to move on and get these amendments over to P&F, there will be further opportunities for debate and that the reason he helped Supervisor Clausius and Stubbs with the amendment with this amount of money will have a net GPR effect and it will have a better chance of passing but if P&F feels there is a better use of $10,000 then I’m sure that will (didn’t hear)
Matt Veldran asks if the whole $20,000 is being used. Green says as far as she knows yes, she has no reason to believe it isn’t, they contracted and assumes they use it. Veldran asks if this leaves $10,000. Green says it does, they will work with CAC which is what we have always done, we ask them how they want to split it and contract it, but this would leave $10,000 and her preference would be that they use it for the food distribution operating because she knows they support other food pantries with that money so her priority would be for food and eliminate the clothing distribution. Veldran asks if this is a new line for the court, Green says no, its adds $10,000 to the $15,000 that is in there now.
The motion to table carries, of course, with only Dye and Wegleitner voting for it. The motion to cut CAC and give to the court passes 6 – 1, Wegleitner votes against.
Unpacking the issues
One hardly knows where to begin here – which is why I said it needs to be reformed, top to bottom, which I believe prompted the attempted retaliation. Staff and elected officials. Here’s the many issues as I see them, starting at the top.
1. The maker of the motion didn’t seem to know anything about the programs he was proposing to cut.
2. The reasoning that these funds aren’t usually something the county does, even tho they have been funding this for many many years, makes no sense.
3. They are taking money for additional money to fund a very small number of people (100 youth?) in favor of serving 1,000s of people.
4. They are taking from a program that serves one of the most basic needs (food, shelter, clothing) to serve a program that has serious impacts on the community, but aren’t the most basic of needs.
5. These funds are “discretionary” meaning the program can spend them on whatever they want. Whoa, I’ve never gotten funding that allows that! OUr contracts have very strict restrictions on where we can and can’t spend our money.
6. A Health and Human Needs member didn’t know what CAC is? Yikes. What are they doing on the committee?
7. This is an existing popular program serving a huge need and the money is being taken for a new program where the need hasn’t really been demonstrated.
8. Green has advocated cutting this program for years, and yet she is very, very vague on the details of the program, why?
9. The whole issue with making this something the churches or faith community should just do. Faith communities used to fill gaps, but it seems that they are becoming a dumping grounds for some of the most vital needs in our community.
10. To piggy back on the faith community issue, the same thing is happening with volunteer community groups and nonprofits, more and more we are being expected to do things for free because it is our mission, and for those that are funded, we haven’t gotten increases in 15 years, which effectively are cuts.
11. Green’s belief that there are lots of clothing programs throughout the county already doing this is faulty, if CAC were to shut down the Koats for Kids and clothing program, I only know of one place to send people, which only serves 80 people and they apparently don’t want to advertise they do it.
12. The county seems to wash its hands of any program that is not mandated by state or federal government, which would be all homelessness programs.
13. No one bothered to tell CAC that they were being cut. No one discussed what impact the cut might have on the agency or the community.
14. They voted without having answers they committee members needed to be informed.
15. The chair of health and human needs thinks that public input is a pain in the ass and doesn’t want to hear it.
16. Excuses that there are plenty more times to testify are untrue. There is one opportunity, next Wednesday, and most people wouldn’t be able to figure that out, I only know from insider knowledge. Wednesday is when Personnel and Finance will be taking up Health and Human Needs amandments, then when it goes to the full county board, the public cannot speak.
17. I’ve never seen he “list” he says agencies are on, I don’t know what it is or where to find it (I think it should be here from this agenda, but I don’t see it), so I have no clue how whomever is on that list should know that they should have been in the room, and even if they were, they couldn’t have spoken anyways.
18. There is more of a concern for moving on and getting things done than there is for doing it right. That is the culture of the county board.
19. Why do people just blindly bow to Jeremy Levin?
20. Does anyone in the public, or even in the nonprofit community even know this is what is going on? There are huge shifts in philosophies and processes and those most affected aren’t a part of the conversation – and really don’t have much of a chance of being given how business is conducted – like business instead of open, transparent government.
