CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
ACTION REQUESTED:
title
Approve the proposed CY2024 Social Service Grant funding allocations
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DEPARTMENT: Community Services
SUBMITTED BY: Miranda Barfuss, Community Grants Coordinator
BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW:
N/A
BACKGROUND:
The City Council established a $250,000 Social Services Grant (SSG) program in 2005 to enhance the ability of local not-for-profit agencies to provide needed services to the community. In 2012, the Council increased funding to $300,000 to allow for a $50,000 set-aside for projects that target current specific community needs. Grant funding was increased to $500,000 in 2015, and remains today, using a portion of the Food and Beverage tax funds.
Based on Council input from the Calendar Year 2022 process, staff made the following changes to the 2023 application review process:
1. Increased the City Council allocation from $50,000 to $100,000
2. Removed low/moderate income as a scoring criteria
3. Discarded the low and high scores for each application
4. Added a representative from the school districts
5. Added a non-scoring Council member
Based on Council input from the Calendar Year 2023 process, staff revised the formula for calculating the 2024 City Council allocation to:
Recommended Award = ∑ (all amounts awarded by submitting Council members)
(# of Council members submitting)
The Unified City Council Award is then rounded to the nearest hundred dollars and added to the reviewer team’s recommendation for a total applicant award.
DISCUSSION:
For Calendar Year 2024, the City received 48 SSG applications requesting a total of $1,394,463. A team of representatives from the Human Rights & Fair Housing Commission, Senior Task Force, Accessible Community Task Force, District 203 and a non-scoring Council member, Nate Wilson, reviewed the applications.
After ensuring each application fulfilled a funding priority of the SSG program, reviewers scored each application on a 100-point scale and made funding recommendations based on the resulting point scores and totaling $400,000.
SSG Funding Priorities
1) Emergency Services - emergency shelter, food and personal care items, emergency assistance
2) Seniors - respite care, meal delivery, home sharing, mental health counseling
3) Self-Sufficiency - financial counseling, education, childcare, employment services, substance abuse services
4) Special Populations - persons with physical, development or mental health disabilities
5) Youth - mentoring, counseling, pregnancy prevention/education
SSG Scoring Criteria
1) Project goals and objectives are clear, measurable, realistic and address the program priorities and documented community need
2) Project need and community benefit are justified and fully documented
3) Project provides a new or improved service to the target population that does not duplicate existing services and encourages collaboration with other organizations
4) Project provides services to Naperville residents conveniently and in sufficient numbers or provides crucial services to a subset of Naperville residents
5) The applicant has sufficient experience, resources and staffing to successfully implement the project within a one-year timeframe and can manage the grant, including documentation of benefits, compliance and reporting
6) The applicant has made efforts to secure other funding for the activity
7) Application is complete, with all required attachments
The remaining $100,000 is reserved for Council members to propose allocations to projects of their choice. The City Council allocation was calculated as follows:
Recommended Award = ∑ (all amounts awarded by submitting Council members)
(# of Council members submitting)
Rounding the Unified City Council Award to the nearest hundred dollars resulted in an overage of $300, therefore the Unified City Council Award was rounded to the nearest $50 to fall within budget.
FISCAL IMPACT:
$500,000 from annual Food and Beverage tax revenue will be allocated to Social Service Grant recipients.
Additionally, up to $2,000 of the SSG funding underspend is budgeted to assist income-qualified residents with their portion of the sidewalk replacement cost sharing program.