CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
ACTION REQUESTED:
title
Approve the proposed CY2024 Social Service Grant funding allocations
body
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 sca...
Click here for full text