Music Thank you. guitar solo Good morning. Thank you for coming in today and welcome to the Social Services and Community Development Standing Committee meeting. We're going to start out today with an overview. Let me give you a little background. When we started out with this issue in committee, we had a partnership present how they would go about changing and augmenting the partner agency funding process that we currently have. And then the administration had two opportunities to present how they would change the process to do it differently and add to what we're currently doing. And so today we're going to have Ms. Elizabeth Chatterton is going to do an overview of the two proposals as presented. before, and then I'm going to ask the committee to start to deliberate on what it is we actually want to do moving forward. I do know that at the end of this meeting, we're going to also have a representative from the Department of Social Services come forward and talk again about their application process. I know there are some concerns raised. We've got at least one group here that wants to talk about that. I think we have a solution already, but if there's time in the meeting today, we are going to open it up for public comment. So at this time I'd like to open up the floor to Ms. Chatterton. Excuse me. Okay, good morning. During the last three social services committee meetings, there have been a series of presentations, the product of numerous conversations between the social services committee, LFUCG's Department of Social Services, the Bluegrass Community Foundation, Goodgiving.net, the University of Kentucky's College of Social Work, the University of Kentucky Martins School of Public Policy, and the United Way of the Bluegrass. The focus of these discussions has been how can we improve partner agency funding process in order to enhance services in our community. The current economic conditions have made it clear that increasing the amount of funds available for partner agencies is fundamental to improving service capacity. However, well-informed investment decisions will also help accomplish this goal by focusing resources on areas where there is the greatest opportunity to maximize impact. I know I'm having difficulty. Oh. Can you change the slide for me? I'm not getting it with this. Okay. And there's overhead is just an outline of who presented on which dates. Through the course of many conversations, four objectives have been identified as central to developing an innovative and comprehensive partner agency funding policy. These objectives have served as the pillars for developing the policy proposals that we will be reviewing today and are listed above on the overhead. They include increasing the total dollars available to fund programs and services by leveraging taxpayer dollars to seek outside funding sources, facing funding decisions on analytics and empirical data by utilizing comprehensive needs assessments, implementing outcome measurements, as well as implementing performance evaluations. During the three previous social services committee meetings, there have been a great amount of collaboration and discussion to develop a framework that accomplishes these objectives. In the May 12th meeting, Mr. Craig Benz from the Department of Social Services highlighted the challenges of the current process for partner agency funding and why these objectives are both necessary and important. Currently staff reports for partner agency funding requests are narrative based and lack a scoring system for objective evaluation. Additionally, more than half of the social services funding requests include funding for overall agency operations which creates challenges for outcome measurements. Funding requires improvement in order to better measure outcomes and report investment data back to the community, and reports should measure how successful partner agencies are in achieving the outcomes proposed in their application. While it is understood that partner agencies are providing valuable services to the community, funding recommendations are not specifically tied to the past performances. And finally, there are no funding limit guidelines in the current application process, which could be implemented by tying funds to an overall percentage of the agency's budget, and that would ensure that LFUCG does not result in creating agency reliance on government as a primary irreplaceable funding source. Today I'm going to provide you with an overview of the two policy proposals that have been presented before the committee and to address these issues so that the committee members can weigh the merits of each proposal and construct a balanced and innovative partner agency funding policy. After I review the different proposals, I will also present you with the questions and feedback from committee members from previous meetings so that you all may revisit these issues, discuss the available options, and move towards developing a policy that benefits Lexington's community as a whole. Please also note that in your packet, some letters from partner agencies providing feedback on the policy proposals under consideration can be found on page 37. For those that do not currently have a packet, you can access this through the GTV3 link on the LFUCG website or call 311 and contact the council officer or GTV3 where someone should be able to help you locate this information. The committee first heard a policy proposal on April 19, 2011, when the United Way of the Bluegrass, the University of Kentucky's College of Social Work, and UK's Martin School of Public Policy presented a framework for partnering with LFUCG to align available funding with the community's goals and opportunities. I will quickly note that as you flip through the slides, you can differentiate the two presentations by either the UK UWBG little indicator at the bottom of the slide or the DSS-BGCF for the Department of Social Services and Bluegrass Community Foundation. Now back to the presentations that we heard on April 19th. The objectives of this proposal, as outlined by the partnership, are to align funding with the identified social gaps in the community, to prioritize funding based on the community's most pressing needs, which would be informed by community resources and data, interviews with partner agencies as well, program participants, and other important stakeholders. It would also be to leverage investment decisions with other collaboration opportunities, including grants, to measure the outcomes of each program, which in turn would provide LFUCG with more information to read back to the community about program investments and the results of those investments. Regular reports on the progress of investments would also be provided to LFUCG and other partners, allowing Council to better track and understand their investments as well as report back on these. The partnership would increase efficiency through the use of an electronic grants processing system, which is already in use by most LFUCG partner agencies and would include the facilitation of applications, reviewing scoring, allocating dollars, and ensuring compliance. These objectives will be fulfilled through a shared process that capitalizes on the core competencies of each agency. The mayor and the council members, as well as the commissioner of social services, the commissioner of social services will continue to set the direction and set priorities for programs and outcome investments. This process would also include employees in key LFUCG departments such as the police, fire, community development, emergency management, code enforcement, and the Department of Social Services to determine the community's most pressing needs as well. And the Social Services Advisory Council will review the scored applications, make recommendations to the mayor as well as the commissioner and the council who will in turn make all of the final funding decisions. UK's College of Social Work and the Martin School of Public Policy will also play an important role in the partnership through its curriculum, helping to identify and work with the practicum students to work with the partnership. The College of Social Work will provide a community assessment and prioritization data. It will aid in program development and provide additional community-specific research and reports to other partners and provide ongoing program evaluation of the financial investments that are made. UK's Martin School will also work on the community assessment piece and provide community-specific research and reports through reviews and assessments of the demonstrated and promising practices which are proposed. The school will provide a quantitative analysis on the effectiveness of each of the funded programs and report this information back to LFUCG. The school will also seek to use interns to aid in public policy research as it is related to the work of the partnership. Lastly, a third-party entity would facilitate the process and provide the training and technical assistance. And local partner agencies will use the priorities set by LFUCG to propose ways to address these issues and provide the frontline service delivery. Overhead is a proposed process timeline. Some highlights that would be new compared to the current process include the needs assessments, prioritizing funding areas, and issuing an RFP that specifies the work that LFUCG would like to fund. I will note that since this proposal was heard before committee, there has been some feedback from council members about adding another step into the process prior to the recommendations going before the mayor in April. We will discuss this further in the presentation, but bringing the recommendations from the Social Services Advisory Council before the Social Services and Community Development Committee, would allow council to have an idea of what is going to be included in the budget as well as the opportunity for some input before the mayor presents a finalized budget or before the mayor presents that information to the public in April. This is the scoring rubric that was presented by the original partnership, and it differs from the proposed scoring rubric presented by the Department of Social Services, which can be found. It slightly differs from the proposed score and rubric presented by the Department of Social Services. You can find that one on page 20 in your packet. And the only piece that really differs is some of the point allocations, as well as the Department of Social Services added a criterion for diversity of funding into theirs. So in order to get the diversity of funding in theirs, they had to rearrange the points, but everything else is pretty congruent between the two proposed scoring rubrics. In the first presentation that was heard from the United Way, the Bluegrass and the University of Kentucky, the committee was quoted that $75,000 would cover all of the needs to pursue additional larger grants for community service providers. This cost would cover all partner agencies and not just social services agencies. Of course, this would also be something that goes out for an RFP, so this is a rough number right now. However, this number would be scaled down in the first year considerably because the leveraging of funds would only be occurring for social service agencies and not all partner agencies. So, again, just to remind you, that original number was to cover all partner agencies. Now, following the presentation from the partnership, the Social Services Committee requested that Commissioner Mills present an in-house proposal from the Department of Social Services that accomplishes the same elements that were presented in the previous partnership presentation. On May 12th and August 30th, the Department of Social Services presented a proposal for a comprehensive funding approach that could be applied to all partner agencies and not just social services, which is consistent with the administration's goal to have a business plan for government and moving towards performance management standards. The objectives of this proposal were mirrored after the objectives of the previous partnership proposal, with added emphasis on the application process. One highlight of these objectives is creating an equal opportunity for all partner agencies to compete for LFUCG funds, and Commissioner Mills has noted that she has received a lot of emails from new potential partners that were unaware of funding opportunities existing from LFUCG and expressing their interest in this process. This proposal was developed in partnership with the Bluegrass Community Foundation, utilizing their goodgiving.net website to help simplify the application process and assist with information sharing. Applicants would be required to complete a workshop on goodgiving.net and create a profile on their website for which LFUCG will utilize that information to reduce paperwork as well as to vet information through goodgiving.net. This website is a community resource that's intended to make charitable giving easier, easy and accessible by connecting donors, grant makers, and the community at large with non-profit causes by sharing objective information. It is a resource available to anyone in the community, and it's free of charge. I believe we've heard in past presentations that it requires about a four-hour investment of time to get a profile loaded up on their website. The new application process compiles all the information about financials in a format that is easy to review. Programmatic information will be much more thorough than in the past and would include proof of past successes, the level of service information and wait list information, including measures that are being taken to reduce that wait list. About 30 pieces of information for each application would be vetted by goodgiving.net. The needs assessment would be completed with assistance from University of Kentucky, College of Social Work and the Martin School of Public Policy beginning in the fall semester of 2012. In April 2008, Commissioner Mills noted that a social services needs assessment report was completed, and this was using the community visioning approach to identify needs, and it incorporated over 300 local social services providers. In the Department of Social Services presentation, they detailed that the needs study that they're proposing would be more comprehensive than the first and would use community analytics to identify needs by priority. In turn, those would become the priority funding areas for future partner agency application cycles. Data will be used to identify needs rather than by using staff input or the applications alone. This study would include comparisons over the last 10 years so that a snapshot of trends can be developed, and it would be updated. And this is really, I think, for the most part, the proposals are pretty similar when it comes to the use of the University of Kentucky, Martin School of Public Policy and the College of Social Work. But the one big thing that I could differentiate between the two proposals is in the Department of Social Services. They propose updating the NEED study on about every five to seven years. and they do not detail using the students for the program evaluations component in the Department of Social Services. Other than that, they are fairly similar. This proposal also acknowledged the need for alternative sources of funding in order to address need, which will likely come from grant sources and outside funding. In addition to allowing partner agencies to use LFUCG funding as grant matches, Mr. Benz requested the committee's input on developing a partnership with one or more outside agencies to identify, apply for, and advocate for additional funding to address our community's needs. Long term, this would allow LFUCG to grow the total dollars available for partner agencies and reduce the reliance on general fund fluctuations, whether it's growing or declining. In this proposal, program evaluations also have an expanded role as well. Review committees would be established to objectively review applications. Applicants would be given the opportunity to provide oral presentations and respond to committee questions. Staff liaisons would contact agencies on a quarterly basis and use a template to ensure that they are asking the important questions. Quarterly and annual reports have been revised to place strong emphasis on outcome measurements and agency changes that might affect programs. The new application adds considerable detail to the outcome measurement process, asking applicants to detail the resources that they will be putting into the program, as well as what activities they're going to be engaging participants in, what the results or outputs will be, and what the measurable benefit will be for participants in the programs. This proposal would involve three scoring committees made up of six members per committee and may include council members, social services advisory board members, goodgiving.net, and other allied agency staff. At the last meeting, there was some discussion about the scoring rubric presented as well as the application proposed by the Department of Social Services. In the following slides, you will find a sample of the scoring criteria to be used for the partner agency applications. and per the committee's request, the 10 points that were previously allocated to the mayor and the council have been removed. Now, social services staff will provide two updates to the social services committee during the year with summaries of agency reporting and statuses of each program, along with an annual update document that will be presented to the Urban County Council. to demonstrate program successes. The proposed process improvements would have three elements that are different from the current process. In September, they would advertise the funding process through GTV3, newspapers, and any social services listservs that are available. There would be a mandatory annual kickoff meeting to introduce new applicants to the process and discuss changes to the process as well as answer questions. And finally, the committee review process would be held in February or March of 2012. PSAs would be concurrent with the budget approval timeline as well. The implementation timeline proposed would see Phase I occurring in FY 2013 and includes implementing the revised application process for social service partner agencies only for the first year before expanding the process to all partner agencies. Phase II would begin in FY 2014 and bring the completion of the needs study and application refinement and also bring the implementation of the leveraging of funds with outside agencies. Those elements are grouped together because currently needs are identified by staff. And finally, the third phase would occur in the fiscal year 2015, and that's when the process would be rolled out to all partner agencies. In the last presentation, Mr. Benz mentioned that he sought input from the budget office and that they would like to implement the new process sooner. So while this is a preliminary timeline, support exists in the administration for implementing these spaces on an earlier timeline, and I believe that was specific to incorporating all the partner agencies on a sooner rather than later time frame. In the past three meetings, we've had a lot of committee feedback, and I've gone back through all of the minutes, and I've tried to do my best to summarize this feedback and present it to you guys based on what you all said. One of the things that we've heard from several committee members is support for partnering with outside agencies to leverage taxpayer dollars in order to pursue more grants as well as to create a pool of matching grant funds. We've also had some questions about the relative value or how the relative value of one program will be used to determine the total funding awarded and may want to revisit that issue today to get some additional clarification. There have also been concerns expressed about shifting to a full-fledged outcome-based model and how removing funding for overhead will impact vital partner agencies. And you'll also, I mentioned earlier that we have some feedback from partner agencies, and you'll find some of their input on this topic and the feedback that's been provided to you all over the past couple of days. Today, the University of Kentucky's deans for the Martin School of Public Policy as well as the College of Social Work have joined us to answer any additional questions that the committee might have about how the needs assessment and the program evaluations would be administered. We've also heard support from the committee for moving the implementation timeline proposed by the Department of Social Services up so that students would be incorporated into the process sooner rather than in FY 2014. And Mr. Ben stated at the last meeting that the Budget Office provided the feedback on moving the proposed implementation timeline up as well. Another idea that was thrown out at the last meeting was posting all LFUCG funding information, as well as the outcomes that are being funded to either the LFUCG website, goodgivings.net profiles, or a combination of both. I mentioned earlier about the scoring, about the proposed timeline, and at the last meeting we heard some support for presenting the scoring committee's recommendations before a committee where council members serve, perhaps this committee, so that council members would have the opportunity to review the recommendations that are going to be going before the mayor so that there is some idea of what to expect come April when the mayor's proposed budget is released. We have also heard some support for incorporating the University of Kentucky students more frequently with fluid needs assessments, and then also including the existing service providers into the needs assessment process as well. There was a lot of discussion at the last meeting about state statutes and local ordinance requirements. On the following slides, you will find, I believe this is page 29, you will find a memo from the law department that summarizes what LFUCG is required to fund. And we do have, I believe Keith Horn has joined us today to answer any questions that you all might have on that memo. We mentioned already the removal of the 10 points from the scoring process, and I believe that scoring rubric reflects that comment now. We also heard some comments about indicating whether or not partner agencies, in addition to what funding levels they're receiving, perhaps on the applications, that they could indicate what other in-kind resources they're receiving from LFUCG. And we also heard support for making the application process parallel with the scoring rubrics that are going to be used, as well as making the PSAs parallel. And then last we've had, you know, there's a lot of questions still about this. This is a pretty big shift. And so I've posted some of the comments and feedbacks, although they're not all action items, but you can review those. I'll spare you reading to you from the PowerPoint. But some of the comments have been that this would give us more credibility by implementing this process. and others have had a lot of questions about going to a fully outcome-based model and what that would do to partner agencies if we remove that overhead. So there's many things to be weighed. Last, I've put on a slide of the most recent numbers from the 2010 U.S. Census data. And I think this pretty well speaks for itself, but Lexington's numbers right now put us at a higher poverty rate than the overall state of Kentucky. And I think that this really highlights our needs to be spending our money in the best and most focused way possible. Now, lastly, I have placed up here the objectives that we've reviewed today in these policy proposals so that you all can use this as a basis for beginning the discussion on assembling funding policy. And that concludes the presentation, if you all have any questions. Thank you very much. Are there questions from the committee? Thank you. Chairman. I think just when you have a lengthy presentation like that, it may be good to kind of clarify some key points. And where I sit, I mean, the lay of the land is that we are in a position where monies are extremely tight, that we are finding ourselves with social services being cut to a certain degree every year. This year being cut, losing five folks internally. and looking at 5% and 10%, 15% cuts that's been asked by the mayor's office to, you know, let's go ahead and start looking at these across government just in case as we move along throughout the year. We're finding ourselves also in a position where we've got to put a lot of energy in looking in other places other than just internally. And so one of the key things that has, I guess, precipitated this from my standpoint is looking at as many different opportunities that we can to bring in outside resource. What's the right way to do that? What's the best way? Who do we partner with? And I appreciate the administration and Commissioner Mills working through this. I think we are getting much, much closer. but I think it's just very important that folks understand the lay of the land, is that we are seeing a shrinking pool of resource, and that is not going to change over the next 12 months. And I think it's incumbent for us that steward this to really look at the most creative ways that we can to maybe do something different, because if we keep doing the exact same thing, this is what we're going to get. And as I said before, I'll say it again, that I found it very interesting when we had this discussion the first time, some of the comments that were made on the mic by some of the agencies that the taxpayer dollar go to. And some of those comments were very interesting to me and very eye-opening as to how we see our community and how we see meeting the needs of our community. So, again, Chairman, I appreciate you trying to whittle this thing down. I know this is something you've been doing for seven years, and it's something that needs to be done, and we have to support those that are most vulnerable. And everyone has a cause, and everyone has areas where they see need, and we need to be as creative as possible at meeting those needs. But, I mean, at the end of the day, there is no way in the world that if we keep doing what we're doing the same way we're doing it, that we can meet those needs in our community. We just cannot. And it's only a matter then of who are we going to hurt the least. And so I think that taking the time now to look at it, maybe a different way of doing this in a fashion that may gain us exponentially down the road is what we need to be doing. So, again, I appreciate trying to whittle this down. Thank you for the presentation. I know it gets kind of lengthy, but at least that's what I see after hearing the presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman McCord. Any other comments or questions? What I'd like to do is operate this today as sort of a committee meeting that sort of operates the way that our subcommittees work, where we just kind of have a conversation about where we're at, how we want to bring this out of committee, whatever we want to bring out eventually. And seeing that no one's had any comments yet besides Council Member McCord, if I could make a few, I would say that when this process started, it really started seven years ago, as Council Member McCord said, with Partner Agency Oversight Committee. And in the last administration, I think we made the biggest amount of headway in getting where we're trying to get to in that the last commissioner put together the committees under social services that actually went out and did site visits. They did the oral interviews. They looked at the applications. They did all those things and put that in place. At that point in time, the committee was working with the administration to look at this from a broader perspective of not just social service agencies but all the partner agencies in government, the government funds. And so we had a person inside government that was working with our committee, and we used to have the Commissioner of Law, Commissioner of General Services, Social Services, the CAO, all these folks would come to these meetings. And the goal was, once we got the model set up inside a government, that we would push that across the entire government. When Charlie Bowen retired, that effectively, we lost that person that was inside a government that was given the charge of pushing that throughout government. And so what we were left with is the strides that we'd made in social services, And that's why they have the committees in place, and that's why they do the interviews and the site visits and those things. So, again, if everybody would remember, even though it's the Social Services Community Development Committee, we could have put this issue in just about any committee except for maybe environmental quality because I don't think there's any partner agencies that we're currently funding that fit under that category. But we put it here because it just landed here. But one thing I've always tried to get all the committee members and everybody watching to understand is that this is bigger than just social services. We're trying to put together a policy that's going to extend across the entire government. So when I look at that and I see that we've had, once again, another 10% cut in partner agency funding this year. The mayor right now, as Councilman McCord has stated, has asked the directors and commissioners to come up with a 5% and a 10% plan to cut their budgets again this year. I don't think anybody foresees, in the foreseeable future back-changing, that there's going to be this dramatic turnaround in the economy, and so we're going to go from cutting our budgets to growing our government back to where it used to be. We also know that social services were cut 55 percent under the last administration. So when we look at this and we say, how do we move forward? When we got started in this committee, I think that some thought that what we were saying was that the partner agencies we're currently funding aren't doing a good job, or they're not doing a good enough job, or they're not doing enough of the job that they do. That's not the case. All we're trying to do is augment what's currently being done with new money. What we know is that in order to go after new money, some of the things that investors or funders are asking for are analytics, empirical data. They're looking at outcomes. And so those are some of the things that are built into this plan. Secondly, a needs assessment. We had a needs assessment done in the last administration, but I think everybody will agree, and we've had that agreement in these meetings before, that no one's using that needs assessment. No one's looking at it. Nothing's being done with it. I personally believe that we need a needs assessment that's fluid, that we start with a point in time, we collect all of our data, we analyze that data, we come up with a needs assessment, but that doesn't become a stagnant document that we keep referring back to for three, four, five, ten years. But instead, as we continue to collect new data each year, that needs assessment is updated. One of the things that we did as a sort of a stopgap under the last administration, before we had that needs assessment done, was Councilman McCord came up with a question after Katrina hit, which was, what's our next Katrina? What does this government need to look towards happening the next year that we need to get out in front of in terms of being able to fund the mechanisms that will make a difference in that area? And so we were kind of looking at it from that perspective every year, what's the new Katrina? But a fluid needs assessment would get at that much better, much more comprehensively than that sole kind of focus. So what I want to do is provide a scenario that will explain how we do what we're trying to do here and why. The mayor currently proposed to the council here recently that in his budget we had a $3.5 million gap for health care costs. And so somewhere along the line in this fiscal year, we were going to have to make up that $3.5 million that we were going to be short at the end of the year. And so as part of his plan to do that, last week the council voted to approve hiring an outside firm to come in, and we're going to spend $1.4 million with this outside firm to come in to try to save not only the $1.4 we have to spend with them to do this, but the $3.5 million that's a gap in the budget right now. So we're going to effectively spend $4.9 million to try to cover this $3.5 million gap that we currently have. If you look at that, and the council passed that, I believe unanimously, what this proposal that we've tried to put together here and the concept of what we're trying to do is to put together a proposal that says we have to bring new money to the table because the current money is drying up. We're seeing that. That's the reality. That's not going to change anytime soon. So how do we do that? We've got to provide the analytics. We've got to provide the program evaluations and reviews, a fluid needs assessment, outcomes, and then someone to take all that data and begin to leverage new money. So what I would propose is that we put out an RFP that does that, and we spend $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 to try to go after as much new money as we can go after. We're realizing that the model that we just passed on the Council unanimously was we're going to spend $1.4 million to try to save $3.5 million. So I understand that some folks are concerned about spending this money with a partner agency, with some third party, to try to save money or bring new money in. But that's really all that we have left. If we don't do something like that, then we're just going to sit here in the same situation we're sitting in, and whatever budget we have next year, we have. And if it calls for a 10% cut before the end of this year, we cut 10%. If it calls for further cuts next year, we just continue to cut. And so one of the screens that was up on there was poverty rates in Fayette County is one in five families in Fayette County live in poverty. That's 58,000 families or 58,000 people, I think, or 20%. Household income is around 22,000. And Kentucky's poverty rate is 19%, and that's as of 2010 census data. So we're in Lexington, arguably the most educated city in the state, one of the most educated cities in the country, probably not doing too well from a lot of people's perspective in terms of our median income, but yet we have one in five families living in poverty in Lexington. Our poverty rate in Lexington is higher than the state's poverty rate, which doesn't make sense to me. what that says to me though is that there are all kinds of of issues out there that face our community that we're not addressing very well and so i realize that there are some out there that say that they've gone after every grant out there they're doing everything out there they brought all the new money that's to the table that can be brought to the table but we're not making a dent in this one in five. And as a social worker, by profession, or at least by training, that's what I want to do. That's one of the things that I wanted to do when I came to this council. We have an opportunity to do that. This committee has an opportunity to start that process by putting together an RFP that will pull in some people from the outside to help manage the students, to work with UK, to get this needs assessment done, and start to leverage new dollars. So now that I make these comments, maybe we've got two more Council members up. So I'll give the floor. Councilman Ford, you still? Yes, sir. Thank you, Chairman. So the proposals that the committee is studying right now, I noticed that in the presentation there was a comparison between two proposals. The first proposal was a third party with the University of Kentucky and the United Way of the Bluegrass. The second proposal was the Department of Social Services in partnership with the Bluegrass Community Foundation. I guess as we sit here now, our focus is on the proposal with the United Way and the University of Kentucky or the proposed RFP for partner agency evaluation funding and funding policy. Is that right? I'm trying to get my hands around where we are right now. Okay. If you'll go back and look at the proposal that the Department of Social Service put together, they also had the piece in there for funding outside dollars for having a third party work with us to leverage outside dollars. They also had the piece with the student internship as well. Okay. So we're talking about partner agency funding. Is that primarily the need for the third party to help us create a policy, or to revise our policy around LFUCG partner agency funding. Is that right? The third party is not going to create the policy. We're going to create the policy. But the RFP will be to bring in a third party that will work with the students, work with the U.K. I also would like to say that we got the letter from MHMR, and they said that they were interested in working with the U.K. as well on the needs assessment. I think that that's a great organization to bring into the mix on that because I think mental health is going to be a big issue that plays out in the needs assessment. But to get back to your answer, it would be to take that third party outside. They're going to work with the students at U.K. and the two deans at U.K. to put together the program that's going to do the analytics, the needs assessment, analyze that data, and then help us with this process in terms of providing good data for us to make our decisions on who we fund. Okay. But then the other piece of that would be that they would also use that information to leverage new dollars. Okay. So primarily, again, and thank you, Chairman, I think I'm approaching the place I need to be as far as understanding. The committee is considering a new policy pertaining to our partner agency funding, particularly social service agencies. In doing so, we're thinking about having a third party help us to implement that new policy. Their scope of work of that third party would be to help us implement that new policy via needs assessment, analytical data, using the students, et cetera. Is that correct? The only thing I would add is that the focus isn't just on social services. The focus is on all the partner agencies and city funds. Okay. And I would add to that that the commissioner noted in one of her emails that because of this process that we're going through, this has really opened up the process because she's had communications with several partner agencies that didn't even know that this opportunity existed. Okay. Okay, so I think I have it. Partner agency funding, third party to help us implement this new partner agency policy. I have a couple of questions in regards to the proposal for the University of Kentucky and the United Way. We have some letters and information that has been shared. Let me throw out these questions, and I don't know who's here to help me answer this. in particular to the United Way, does the United Way provide funding to existing LFUCG partner agencies historically and currently? I think we all know the answer to that question is yes. Okay, okay. Let me stop you for one second. Yes, sir. This is going to be an RFP process if this goes forward. So United Way was in partnership with the University of Kentucky, Martin School, and College of Social Work when they made their first proposal. But if this goes forward, if the dollar amount is more than $25,000, then it has to go out for RFP. So I'm not sure that I would focus solely on the United Way because that's going to have to go out for RFP. Okay. I'll do so. I'll keep an open mind to that. But the fact of the matter is that a large part of the conversation thus far has been on the proposal of UK and the United Way. And so since we're there, not to scrutinize the United Way, but just to bring clarity to the committee. So the United Way does provide funding to some of the existing partner agencies that the urban county government has provided funding for. The second question, and this question is raised by one of the letters that we received from one of our partner agencies. Does the United Way compete with some of our partner agencies for external funding? Is there anybody that can, in the audience, Chairman, if you would recognize the appropriate folks that could answer that? I think that's important to know. If someone would like to come up, if there's someone here from the United Way that would like to come up and address that. Mr. Farmer, here's the director of the United Way. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. In regards to those questions, the funding of existing, United Way funding of existing social service agencies in our community that also receive LFUCG partner agency funds, and whether or not the United Way also competes, so to speak, externally with our partner agencies for dollars that come into our community. There's a possibility there is a competition. When we apply for federal and foundation grants, there is always the opportunity for local competition because this is an open competition process. What United Way has done, and I hope that we were 100% clear, is that when we apply for a Federal and Foundation grant, we notify our partnering agencies at that time that our intent of applying for the grant. We have made agreements with certain agencies in this community that if we are applying for the grant and we are aware of another agency applying for the grant, that we would cede that to that agency, unless there are some specific conditions in which we decide we need to apply. So there's a conversation that goes on between the United Way and other agencies to ensure that we're not competing. We don't think it's in the best interest of the community to compete because unfortunately it sends to the particular funder that the community may not be together on how they're going to address the initiative. So it's best that one agency apply. Okay. And let me thank you for that response, Mr. Farmer. Let me go back to the point of the United Way funding, providing funding to our existing partner agencies. The matter before the committee is our policy for awarding funding to our partner agencies. And to that extent, I would like to ask very briefly what policy or criteria does the United Way utilize in its funding of our social service partner agencies? Well, the criteria is quite simple. We issue an RFP to the agencies given specific criteria or data points, asking the agencies to respond on how they're going to address the issue. Those particular proposals are then reviewed by people who we call or actually are subject matter experts who will provide a score on their assessment of the likelihood of that proposal being successful. We then have another series or groups of volunteers to review it, review the proposal, and make the decision. So our decisions, quite frankly, are made not by our staff. It's made, quite frankly, by the community, and the board of directors approve the funding allocations. Is there a great level of reliance upon need assessments and analytical data? Yes. There is? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ford. Councilman Stennett. Thank you, Chair. First of all, I do appreciate the opportunity to bring this forward. I was with the Outside Agency Committee since its infancy, since we created it years ago, and I've seen a lot of dialogue, a lot of talk about trying to get a better handle about how we distribute money in our community. Because let's face it, the money we distribute is just a tip of the iceberg for a lot of organizations. For some, it's a majority of their funding. So we're not going to be a solve-all, be-all as a government for our community. So that gets me to, I guess, the really dying question is, first of all, why is the current process broken? I think we've identified some areas where we can improve it. But we're talking about RFPs. We're talking about leveraging funding and bringing in either United Way or Bluegrass Community. I think we're so far ahead and off track of where we really should be at this point in our government and determine who gets funding and who doesn't. I think that's what it comes down to is do we continue to support the organizations that we currently support at their same level or lower level, higher level. And so I think the RFP chair needs to be more focused around doing a needs assessment of our community first. I think that's the very first thing that needs to be done because I don't think anyone in this room can come up here and directly tell us 100% what the needs are of our community today and where government fits into those needs. Because, again, we can't be every need for every organization. And what are our most critical? What are we going to be in the business of doing as a government in distributing the $3 million? dollars. And you gave a couple stats earlier. I'm not sure they've been cut 55% over the last several years at social service agencies. I don't think they've been cut any. I think they're almost at the same level as they were a couple years ago back at it. But on the health insurance example, I don't want anyone to think we spent $1.4 million and lost $4 million. The $1.4 we spent saves us $7 million over a calendar year because our health insurance is on a different timetable. So I just want to make sure that helps your argument. We spent $1.4 to save $7 million. So that's what we need to be doing here. We need to be donating money to groups like the Salvation Army, Hope Centers, et cetera, to leverage more dollars. I agree with that concept, Chair, but I think our very first order of business needs to be doing and needs assessment. Jumping into saying you have to sign in through an application process through a partner agency, I'm not sure that's where we need to jump into right away. I think we need to get a better handle of what our community really needs in terms of social service dollars and where we can best impact those needs in our community and then make decisions on what our applications look like do we continue with the same groups out there are there new groups we need to consider but we don't have any of that information I know we tried it a couple years ago I don't think we ever got to that point and I agree with you bringing in UK's of value to us looking at getting a partner out there eventually to help us write grants and bring more dollars that's our goal long term but I think first off we need to do a needs assessment and I would make a motion to do an RFP for that if that's what we really want to do today. That's just my thoughts, Terry. I don't want to derail what you're trying to do. I think that's a viable outcome down the road. I think, first off, though, again, our needs assessment and see what we're currently doing and is it working and develop a matrix from that needs assessment. Thank you, Councilman Stennett. If I can make one correction in that when I said the 55% cut, that wasn't the partner agencies that's been cut 55%. That was the Department of Social Services that's been cut over the last four years 55%. I just want to make that one clarification. I'll respond to some of the other things you said, but I don't want to do that tip or tat. I want to let everybody speak. So, Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Chair. I think a lot of times what we do, and we see this in all areas, is we get penny wise and pound foolish. and a lot of the agencies that we fund use that as seed money for matching grants, et cetera. As the economy has been hurt, so have the needs accelerated. And it's really hard for me. I've been on the council for almost three years now. I was on the partner agency committee when we had that, trying to wrap my arms around not just social services, but economic development groups, the arts, et cetera. Some of them have buildings. Some of them are in our insurance. Some of them we do bookkeeping for. And we don't have a real clear, I think, concept of really who we're given what to in a lot of ways. The needs are enormous. And a lot of times we can't be all things to all people. Absolutely not. But we also need to know what we're doing, how much we're spending in kind and in other ways for all these kinds of agencies, and where they're getting their other funding and how we can support them. So I do support the needs assessment and include it in that, what services we're providing, be it accounting services, space, other kinds of support. I know that some organizations have their own fund drives. Some go to United Way. Some of them are United Way agencies, not all. So I think that needs to be part of the needs assessment that we do. And I also will throw out a plea to folks. If you've got some extra money, make a donation. If you've got some extra time, volunteer. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Henson? Thank you, Chair. I feel like that we're making things way, way too complicated, and we're moving along in a direction that we don't maybe eventually would want to get there, but I would think when you're looking at leveraging dollars, we should have done that several years ago when we had more money. But now, and maybe having less money makes it even more, a better reason to do it, but I completely agree with Council Member Stenet and Lawless about putting the cart before the horse. We need an assessment first. There's a lot of things that I dislike about this plan. I think the application process is a good thing. Accountability is a good thing. Categorizing, I want to not have those categories and limit the services. Maybe those categories would come later when we have an assessment. But the bottom line is the basic needs of people in this city need to be met. I think the more restrictions you place on something, the more stringent it becomes hurts the people that we need to be assisting. But I would support a motion to go ahead and do the needs assessment first and back up and not move so quickly on all of this other stuff. And one other point, if you're going to do an RFP for the leveraging of funds, I would suggest that it not be an agency that receives funds from LFUCG should not be eligible to participate in that RFP. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Simpson. Councilmember Kaye. Thank you, Chair. A couple of comments. On page 25 of the handout and of the overhead, there's a proposed implementation timeline. timeline. And I think what that suggests for me is that for this committee, there's an order of priority for making decisions. It seems to me that the first question is whether this committee is going to approve the shift to programs rather than general support for agencies. That's a policy question. And if so, whether we want to do it this year. The second question is whether we need a needs assessment. Same question, do we need it this year before we make changes or does it come later? And I would say in addition to that, in my mind anyway, there's a question of whether that needs assessment needs to be done through an RFP process or whether it can be done internally in cooperation with partner agencies. And one other kind of suggestion about process, the same thought occurs to me about the question of leveraging outside funds. I think that's important, as has been pointed out by a number of people, but I think that is separate from the question of how we want to proceed this year and next year in terms of evaluating the applications that we get from partner agencies. So there's been a couple of suggestions that look like they moved towards motions. I'd like to make a motion that we take action on the question of whether to revise the application or review process for this year. So move. Okay, we have a motion in a second. If I could say that on the agenda, that's the second item on the agenda. The application process itself is separate than what we're discussing right now. The issue that Council Member Henson brought up with the categories that have gone out with that letter from the commissioner, that's all a different item on the agenda. So if I guess I don't. So is that item number three? Or is that? It's actually item number four. Item number four. Okay, well, then I'll withdraw my motion and wait. Thank you. Thank you. I guess I'll take my second turn to speak here, and then we've got people coming up second turns to speak. I guess I have a simple question, and that would be that if everybody agrees that the money is drying up under the current process and people say that we need a needs assessment, I agree with that 100%. But to say then that we should push back down the road a few years funding or trying to bring in new money doesn't make a lot of sense to me. unless we are just going to decide that as a government we're going to keep the current amount of funding that we have in place for partner agencies in place, and as the economy continues to downturn and we make cuts, then we just continue to keep cutting what we're giving to partner agencies. If that's what this committee wants to do is continue on that trajectory, it can do that as a committee. I don't see how that helps anybody out there that's in need. when we talk about a third party doing this as opposed to doing it inside, it hasn't been explained to this committee yet, if we do this in-house, who's going to do that work and how it's going to get done. And that's one reason why I made the point that the department's been cut 55% in the last four or five years and they lost another five people this year. in their proposals to do it in-house, they've never described who in-house is going to do that or how they're going to do it in-house. So my point is if the committee wants to say the same as just do a needs assessment, but we don't have any desire to add new dollars to the table, then what we're telling our community is that we've done all we're going to do. A needs assessment with new information doesn't bring new money to the table. It doesn't affect any outcomes. So the needs assessment is a critical piece of it, but if we're not going to do something differently to bring new money to the table, then I guess we're just saying to the community that what we've done in the past is good enough, and if we can't do that in the future, that's okay too. So anybody who has that perspective, if they want to share what they envision happening in terms of the people who need these resources out there moving forward, I'd love to hear that because it's the same scenario as the mayor is saying, we need to figure out how to save money in our health care costs. So we're going to spend $1.4 million over here to do that. Now, it's not been proven that we're going to save $7 million. It's been suggested that we're going to. We'll find out along the way. It won't be proven that if we spend $40,000 or $50,000, $60,000 in an RFP to bring in new money, that we're going to bring in new money. But if we do an RFP and we spend $50,000 to try to bring in new money and we get one additional grant for $100,000, that's $50,000 to the table that wasn't there last year. And I think that's one reason why the council, forward-thinkingly, as the consultants kept saying Thursday night, looked at spending that $1.4 million in hopes that we save that $7 million down the road. So, again, anyone who thinks that we don't need to begin leveraging new dollars, I would like to hear from them what their vision is for the future for the people in this community that are in need when dollars are currently being cut. And I'll call on Council Member Ford. Thank you, Chairman Myers. The issue, as I see it, I think that we're understanding is partner agency funding. How do we evaluate and how do we distribute and award the partner agency funding that we provide in our community? There is great need, and we discussed this yesterday, Mr. Myers. If urban county government did not provide general fund support to our partner agencies, we would still have an obligation for the social service function of this government to be in support to our agencies and more so for the benefit of those in our community in need. So there's been a mix between that conversation. We've kind of exacerbated the true need in those that we serve. We definitely want to serve those folks, but the issue at hand is how do we award partner agency funding. Chairman, I would ask, if appropriate at this time, if we could ask staff to report to us how many folks have signed in as of right now to speak. Can I ask for just one moment for us to report that out to us? And I'm supportive of the motion that was made, and I look forward to once getting down on the agenda to discuss that about the need assessments. But how many folks are scheduled to? Thank you, Richard. Mr. Chairman, how many? Do you have that number of how many folks are scheduled that are requesting to speak? Yes, it's four. Some of these folks we've already heard from. We've got letters from most of these folks. So it's really time for the community to do its work. We've gotten input at every meeting. Two of the people on here have spoken at numerous meetings. One I'm not sure about. The other one has sent. I think we've got three letters currently right now from that organization. So we've had input. Mr. Chairman, I would make a motion that at this juncture of the meeting that we allow for the public comment of those that are interested to speak. So move. So we've got a motion and a second. I want to remind us that we have council members yet to speak. Any discussion? Councilman Stennett? I would just ask that the three of us be allowed to speak before we hear from the public. But I definitely think we need to hear from them today. Very well. And I'm just doing that in consideration of time. Sure. We have a two-hour committee meeting. We've already been here 70 minutes. I just want to make sure that those folks have ample time to speak. Any more discussion? Mr. Chair, could I ask how long you allow each individual to speak for? I would say the customary three-minute time limit that we get for public comment. Any more discussion? Any more discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? That passes. So we'll continue on with the list. Are you through Councilman Ford? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Councilman Stennett? Thank you, Chair. I would just add a couple things to some of the dialogue. The importance of a need assessment is to give us targets in order to secure funding for those targets. I don't think we have to stop going out there and looking for extra dollars while we're doing that. I think they can be done simultaneously, but if we really want to hone in on who we need money for in our community, we need those targets. And that's what the need assessment, I believe, would give us a better, clearer picture about where to look for for those dollars, for those areas. We want to target as a government, and that would be our role for those. But I do think you can continue on, Chair, while we're going down that process and secure additional funding for who are already supporting. I don't think that prohibits us from doing that. I just think the need assessment will give us a clearer picture and a clearer target going forward. And I think that needs to be done by a third party outside of government and do an RFP for a group that specializes in doing that because I know they're out there. They know who's out there to come in and do that. I'm not sure. I know we've done some in-house with the new administration. I'm not sure how they proposed it in the mayor's budget, how they came up with their list. They may have a way they like to do it, but I think having a third party may be the best solution for everyone to try to accomplish that task. I don't think it excludes us from getting funding right now for those people we currently support. But I would like to have a clear definitive target going down the road. So I just would add that in there to that conversation. Thank you. Councilman McCord. Thank you. I'll just add to that very briefly. I think that after hearing from the public, it might be a wise move to I'll bring forward a motion that we bring forward two RFPs simultaneously. The needs assessment, the Council Member Senate said, we need to identify what it is we're going to target, and then the RFP for outside funding. There's no reason why those two cannot run simultaneously, and we could bring that recommendation to the full council. and if the full council says that's not something they want to do, then we can take it up at that time. Thank you. Councilman Adalves? I still have some concerns about, you know, I support the RFP on the needs assessment. I know United Way has done them periodically. I don't know how current their most recent one is. But, again, it's not like Council Member and Chair Myers said. It could be in any committee because it's not the social service agencies that are outside agencies. And there are a lot of factors in there that aren't measurable. In other words, like the Human Rights Commission, if we don't have them, we don't get HUD funding and CDBG money. The city doesn't. If we don't, you know, so there are a lot of factors of how do you measure. There are some things. We're not talking about widgets that are being manufactured. We're talking about human beings. We're talking about economic development. We're talking about quality of life. We're talking about an array of issues. Many people that are served by these are referred from the drug court. or I know Rape Crisis Center does a lot of programming for our city and our schools, and I'm sure domestic violence and many of the other programs do. So how do you measure? Many of those things aren't measurable. After being in the field for so many years, I have people every once in a while, that will come up to me that I may or may not recognize from years ago that said, you know, I was at the rape crisis center. It was a horrible time. It saved my life. Now I'm doing this and this and this. But there's no way to measure some of those outcomes. But they do change lives. So, again, it's not widgets. We're talking about human beings, quality of life, things that you really can't measure like you can how many automobiles came off the assembly line that were defective. So I think we need to be really careful about how we look at, I think we need a needs assessment, and in that we need to know exactly what support and how much it's costing our government for every outside agency, be it economic development or down the road, and also how some of these agencies are partnering with schools and other entities in the government. Thank you. Thank you. And I will say that we do have the list of all our partner agencies and what they're getting, all the in-kind services and all the things. That list has already been compiled by the government. And if I could recognize Councilman Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Just to move things on a little faster, then I will go ahead and make a motion directing the administration within the next 30 days of passage of this before the whole council in working with our chair to put out an RFP for a needs assessment for social services agencies and services in our community. So move. Second. And also I would add to that, I'm sorry, and report back with that assessment no other than April of 2012. That would give them six months. Second. So we have a motion and a second on the floor. Any discussion? Council Member Kaye? I agree with the need for a needs assessment. I'm not sure that we're ready to proceed with an RFP. I think there's a lot of information out there amongst the partner agencies about what the needs are. I'm not sure how much new information a new needs assessment, separate from the information that we have in the community, would generate. So I'm a little bit, at the very least, I'd like to slow down a little bit. So I don't have a strong feeling about that, but I have at least a feeling that my concern is that what we would be doing is plowing old ground and not finding a lot of information and having spent some money with not a lot of results. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I share Council Member K's, some of his concerns as well. My question is more to a point of order. While I'm very respectful of the motion and would like to discuss it and consider it at the appropriate time, is that my understanding is that we were going to have public comment from those. We had a motion and that motion carried for public comment after my two council colleagues, Mr. Stenet and Mr. McCord, spoke. And so now we've extended beyond that. Council Member Kaye placed a motion earlier and withdrew it because of the order of the agenda. And I would just ask Mr. Stendon for us to consider the motion or any subsequent motions. I know Jay has one as well after the public comment that we've already passed and approved, hopefully to commence here very shortly. I'm perfectly fine with waiting after the public comment. I won't be here for the vote. I have an emergency I need to get to here at 1130. So in response to Council Member Kay's comments, we've been on this council for eight years, and we have done needs assessments. We tried to do one two and a half years ago, and there wasn't enough resources in our community, wasn't enough cooperation. I'm not going to say it was political cooperation, but we did not get a good handle and a good enough response to justify we have enough information because we don't. We need a third party outside of Lexington to come in here and really dig into it. And those folks that don't want to participate in helping us identify who does what, then we won't consider them for funding. Because I think if we're not going to really get serious about this and really get a handle on what our community is doing out there, because we have some great stories to tell. But if people don't want to help us understand, then we can't consider them for funding because we're not able to identify what they do and what role they play. But we've done this. We've done it a lot. I know there's information. It's just disorganized. And I don't think we have really gotten serious enough and really tried to organize it and say who does what and who's doing what well. And I think we need to identify those folks and help them. If you'd like to respond, I'll let you. Well, just, again, very briefly. I understand the concern. I'm not convinced that we don't have within the community, maybe outside of government, but let's say at UK or in other places, the capacity to do this same kind of thing as a partner with the government rather than as a contracted agency. I don't know, but that's a possibility. so I'd like to slow down a half a step and think a little bit more about ways we might do it that meet your criteria because I understand that and it makes a difference to me. So thank you. Thank you. If we can have the four people that wish to speak, Jack Birch is the first one. Could you please come to the microphone, state your name and your address, please? and the second is Walter May third is Janet James and then Dr. Stevens, David Stevens Jack Birch, Community Action Council 710 West High Street with three minutes I'm going to try to just pick what I think are the key points I'd like to share with you this whole issue about paying someone to find grants at a time when this government doesn't have enough money to do critical things This makes absolutely no sense to me. Believe me, we all know where the money is, and we are all applying. I can't give you names today because I don't have ink on paper, but we are ready to announce a million-dollar grant from the federal government to abate lead-based paint in homes of young children. We are getting ready to announce a $500,000 grant from a private foundation to address the nutritional needs of the elderly. We are ready to announce, and I can name this one, that KU is doubling the money it is going to spend to help its low-income customers reduce their energy consumption. Last year, and it's not just one agency doing for itself, last year we raised a grant and transferred the dollars to God's Pantry to increase the amount of fresh produce and fruit they could distribute to low-income people. Just simply we applied for it because we were eligible to apply and they weren't, and passed it through. That is going on out there, and if you don't know about it, please slow down and learn about it before you decide to spend money hiring a grant writer at another organization. Councilman Stenis issue about needs assessment. You have lots of needs assessments out there. Councilmember Kay is right. The problem you have is most of us do effective needs assessments within the focus of our mission. Community Action Council, we look at poverty issues. Hope Center looks at homeless issues. Bluegrass MHMR tends to look at mental health issues. Pull it all together and you've got a wealth of data out there. Commissioner Mills has already started that conversation of engaging the University of Kentucky, and part of that is pulling together information you already have. Take some time to let her do that before you start a whole new system, because all of us are going to continue to do our needs assessments because our federal and other funding sources require them anyway. I guess when you've been around as long as I have, you kind of come with this perspective of having seen it before. Good leaders constantly examine processes and work on them. I'm seeing that in your commissioner. She is looking at the issues. She's trying to redesign the systems. She's coming up with some great ideas. I won't tell you I agree with 100%, and she will tell you that I don't. I'm in her office sometimes telling her I think there's a better way to do it. But you've got incredible leadership from somebody who has worked for a very long time in this field, who is consulting with everybody from the university to the outside agencies and trying to give you the most effective process to allocate your dollars. And I really would urge you to slow down and work with her. Thank you. Mr. May. Thank you, Mr. Myers, the committee. Just a second, something Jack finished up on. I think before you vote to spend money on outside needs assessment, you might want to talk to your commissioner and ask her what she's doing about that. I'm kind of, every time I hear somebody say we need to do something about leveraging the city's dollars with new money, and I was like, well, yes, that's what we do all the time. Let me try to give you an idea. It was nearly 20 years ago that the city built a homeless shelter and asked the Hope Center to operate it. That's where we operate on West Lallon Avenue. That is the city's shelter. The city asked us to operate the shelter and to develop programs to address the problems of homelessness. We have done that assiduously since that time. The budget when we started out there was about a million dollars. It is now over five million dollars. And I can guarantee you it's not because we have $4 million more of city money. In about 1995, we were getting about $150,000 from the city. Now we're getting a little over twice that. That's not including the detention center recovery program, which you all asked us to run in the detention center. But for the money we use out on West Loudoun Avenue, we get a little bit twice that, whereas our budget is five times as big as it was. Let me talk about capital facilities. The city shelter has 118 beds, okay? It's regularly sleeping about 220 people right now. We've struggled with that since you asked us to operate it. There's never been enough beds for everyone to sleep in. And so what we have done about that, we built the George Privet Recovery Center by getting money from the Federal Home Loan Bank and from Kentucky Housing Corporation, Dr. George Privet. and that has 136 beds. In a couple of months, we will open the Don and Kathy Jacobs House, which is a transitional housing facility where we can finally take the mental health program, the employment program, the transitional housing program out of the shelter and put it into a transitional housing facility. That's another 140-some beds. So after you asked us to operate the 118-bed shelter, We have built two buildings, both of which cost much more than the original shelter. We're adding 280 beds, so there will be more than 400 beds out there. And right after the first of the year, finally, I think we'll be at a point where everyone who stays with us will be in a bed and not on a mattress or a blanket on the floor. So we're glad. But that's how we've leveraged the building you asked us to operate. So the leveraging is going on. And frankly, I don't know anyone who's doing it better than the Hope Center or the Community Action Council or the Salvation Army. So I don't see where somehow there's been recognized a need or somehow it's thought that that city's money is not being leveraged. It is quite outstandingly. Thank you. Janet James. Councilman Myers, I've never spoke to this committee or sent in a letter because this is not what I usually do, but my boss told me to sign up, so I did. And Commission Reel says that I should tell you my name is Janice James, not Janet James. But I really don't have much to say except thanks to all the effort that you all are putting in to do this. I know your motives are all good. And the questions you have asked, particularly some of y'all who have been associated with nonprofits, are great. Excuse me. Could you give your name and address? Oh, I'm sorry. Janice James. Home address or business? Either one. Oh. 1524 Bersales Road, Lexington, Kentucky. Anything else? Thank you. I will say that I said Janet because that's what you wrote down. I know. Okay. I know that. Walter signed me up, so he put the wrong name, yes. But the question, some of the people who work with nonprofits have been great because the money that we get through urban county government is seed money for us to leverage for other grants, as Mr. May had pointed out. And if you look at the 15 agencies that you fund now and the amount that is given to them and how much their total budget is, you have a great idea of the leveraging that goes on here in Lexington to serve the needs of those that are less fortunate than some of us. So the other thing I might say with the needs assessment, I chaired the housing needs assessment for the last social service needs assessment, and it was a good process. And as we were doing that, there was several comments about other assessments that had been done and had not been acted on. So there is some, I guess there is some wisdom in looking at what's already done and decide if we'd just be redoing what we've already done. And the other final thing I would say, in doing a needs assessment, if a need is being met and funding is pulled away from it, it may create the need again. So you sort of have to look at what you're supporting, and if it's something that needs to be sustained, otherwise you create the need again. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Stevens? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is David Stevens, and the address I'll give you is 736 West Main Street. That's where the Salvation Army is located. And I'm here representing the Salvation Army today, along with the delegation of others, including our chairman of the advisory board and the officers who represent and run the Salvation Army. the advisory board I've been on for 20 years or so I did resign when I was chairman of the budget and finance committee of the council during that time and but I came back to the Salvation Army when I decided to retire from the council which was three years ago almost the Salvation Army board met yesterday and I would say there's some anxiety there about the list of priorities which you have published for making money available to nonprofits we're not sure we fit in any of those categories we would appreciate some clarification of that and it also say that we are a competitor to raise public funds with United Way and we had some anxiety also about having the United Way decide what allocations might be directed toward the various not non-profits. The Salvation Army operates the primary shelter for homeless women and children. It's frequently over capacity and we spend a quarter of our budget on operating that homeless shelter. It costs about, and our budget is five and a half million this year, most of which money is raised from the public here in Lexington. As you know, we have various events, and I hope you can come to our breakfast on November 3rd, and I hope the council has table two or three or four there for our breakfast because that's one of our events that raises money. We're going to be roasting and toasting the central bank there, so I'm sure you'd have an enjoyable breakfast that day. We also, as you know, have a cattle campaign and many other things to try and raise money in our community. And that's how we get our money, primarily. The allocation this year for our homeless shelter, which is what money, the money that the urban county government allocates to the Salvation Army, goes for operation of homeless shelter. That was $180,000 this year. And as I said, the total cost of operating the shelter is about a quarter of our total budget. So we ask you to give that consideration, and we'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman McCord. Hi, Doc. Good to have you back. Well, I'm not used to this side of the table. I was going to say, they're a different angle. The list that you mentioned that you referenced that the Salvation Army has great concern over as far as this is where LFUCG looks to fund and so forth. Who produced that list, or where did you all get that list from? I think it's the list that the social services produced, yes. Is that from the committee, or is that from the commissioner? That's from the commissioner. Okay. Okay. See, again, Council Member Kaye, I want to go to – thank you, Doc. This is the point. Here's an organization in our community that meets a critical need that is doing a wonderful job, and we hear about, well, we ought to hear about what the plans are for this and the plans are for that, and then we sit here and here's a group that's massively confused whether they fall into the funding or not. Obviously, they should, in my opinion at least. And so I think it kind of validates the point of what we don't have is a roadmap as to these are the things, this is where we should fund. And just as you were talking, it made me realize that it just depends on which side you're on as to do we have the needs covered or do we know about them. And frankly, again, if you keep doing it the same way, expecting different results, that's the definition of insanity. And I think I would, well, I have some pretty strong feelings about finding all the money out there. I have some pretty strong feelings. I have no doubt that we're doing a great job and that you guys are leveraging as well as you possibly can. However, if someone was to offer you more, are you telling me that you don't want it, you don't need it, you're good, perfectly fine? I just got back from a conference in Washington, D.C. where I saw a lot more, a lot more. And at the end of the day, I find it hard to believe that if there isn't something that we can do to offer more, that we shouldn't exhaust that energy. And if it costs us $25,000 or $50,000 to make that attempt or to try and do those types of things, I don't see why that's an unwise move on our part. and especially when I hear what I hear from the Salvation Army. It causes me grave concern along with you. And we've worked together for the seven years that I've been on here, and it's one of those things where I think it's starting to prove your point when you start to hear these types of things. But anyway, long and short of it is that I support the need or the RFP for a needs assessment, and whether the full council wants to do it or not, I think that we should because we're hearing that here's a critical need that may not even be funded. Thank you. I should add that we do, and the homeless people we serve, we try to help them, and our goal is to get them into their own housing when they leave the Salvation Army. But unfortunately, it's not always possible to rehabilitate everybody that comes through. Well, and two, I think the times that we're in, the only second to the Great Depression is adding all kinds of problems, and, as Council Member Law has said, exploding the needs. And, again, if we're looking at a government that has this much money and that much money is shrinking dramatically and agencies are saying, well, we just need more and we need more, I mean, again, we're at a place where we've really got to question how are we going to do this going forward. And so, again, thank you for coming down here. You're welcome. It's always good to be back. No other questions, Dr. Stevens. Thank you, Dr. Stevens. Dr. Stevens, we will, I think, under item four, and I think Council Member Henson had some concerns before the committee meeting started, that we need to address that document that went out that said that there's going to be these things that are funded, and if you don't fit in those seven categories, you won't be. We're going to address that in item number four. Thank you. Council Member Lawless? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have mixed feelings about the needs assessment. As I said, meeting before last, I guess, in my years at the Rape Crisis Center, we participated in needs assessments in the community all the time. And right before I left, there was a federal grant for a regional needs assessment from the CDC. And I said I went back to my office and I got about five three-ring binders this thick with needs assessments that had been done. And people were still poor. Women were still battered. women were still being sexually assaulted people were still homeless we still had mentally ill people I mean the needs are there and depending on what we would spend on it I think is important and another anecdote somewhere around 1979, 1980 Mayor Amato took what was then the Women's Center the spouse abuse shelter that was there then and the rape crisis center out of the budget completely because, he said, we all served women. We didn't. There was no need. We did a year-long extensive search and realized that we individually could provide the services. There wasn't overlap but collaboration. At that time, the rape crisis center got $30,000 a year, and our annual budget was about $60,000, and they said diversify. And when I left five years ago, we were getting about $60,000 from the city, and our budget was $1.2 million. So, you know, I don't think if our city government divisions, and I think this administration is doing a real good job of moving forward with collaboration between divisions and lack of duplication, duplication, the amount of networking and collaboration amongst the community agencies as well as the school systems, as well as our own government, amongst social service agencies, is astronomical. We could take a good lesson from our non-profit social service agencies. I have a friend who was the director of a nonprofit here in Lexington for years and moved to San Francisco and got a job in the private sector, and he said, oh, my word, if these people in the business world had to operate like social services or nonprofits did, he said, it's unbelievable. So I am very confident that at least 99% of the social service agencies we fund are making every nickel count and collaborate with each other, the city, the school system. So I'm mixed about the needs assessment. If it will move it forward, I think that that's important, but there's grant sharing, grant writing sharing, et cetera. And so I have mixed feelings. It depends on the scope of it and what the cost would be. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I've got a small list of comments. It's kind of discreet, but the first one was a little bit off topic, but there's been a couple of comments comparing the investment in the wellness center to what we're talking about here. and just so that we don't put information out there that is, I think, not accurate. The wellness center is not designed to save all that money. The set of initiatives that the government is taking on in wellness, including the way in which the third-party administrator works, the way that the pharmacy options work, other aspects are collectively designed to save that money. So I don't want to leave the impression in the public that we're hiring a company to institute a wellness center. We're paying them $1.4 million, and that in itself is going to save the government $7 million over the full year. I think that's not accurate. So just to try to clarify that. Secondly, issue on the list of the categories of kinds of things that would be eligible for funding from government, my understanding is that that was discussed with this committee. We looked at that draft. It's coming back to us, and the question of what they will be finally is still on the table. So that's not a set piece at the moment. That's not a decision that's been made. on the question of an RFP to get leverage. What I'm hearing, at least from the social service agencies that are represented here, is that's not what they think government does best, that they think they may be able to do that, and that if we want to get in that business, at the very least they'd like to talk to us about how we might proceed and how we could do it in such a way that it does not seem threatening to them. And they can speak for themselves about that, But that's the sense I get. And then finally, on the needs assessment, I agree we need it. I don't think we're in a position right now to say we need to do it through an RFP. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And if I could make some comments. Obviously, I was the one that brought up the parallel between the council voting to spend the $1.4 million. It was Councilman's Senate that raised the $7 million savings. I had the $3.5 million savings. But I think I would say to further make my point, which is what I think you did, is that the government voted to spend $1.4 million to try to bring about a savings, regardless of what the savings is up to being. Because, like I said, there's no guarantee it's going to be $7 million. There's no guarantee it's going to be $3.5 million. The thing is, the council, in a forward-thinking process, voted to spend $1.4 million as part of that process. If you say that that's not the only thing that's going to save us money, then I'd say then we can add in to the 1.4 that we spent, the money we're paying the consultants, and the money we're going to spend on those other pieces as well. I don't disagree with the analogy. I just thought that the numbers that were being applied might mislead people in the public, and someone's going to come back and say, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so no problem with that. Okay, yeah, because my point was really the concept of spending to get somewhere is really what I was trying to do. And I want to remind everybody that this is bigger than just social services. We keep talking about social services, but this is bigger than social services. This is all the partner agencies and the different needs that we have across this community. And I go back to what Council Member McCord said. It's interesting to me, never in my life have I seen a group of people come to this microphone and continue to say, we don't need to do this. We don't need to bring new money to the table. We're doing just fine. But yet when the budget cuts come, that same group of people come and say, why are you cutting our budget? So if they're able to write all these grants and take care of their needs and we don't need to get any new money from outside, then why do they come in and raise concern when their budget's cut? It's astounding to me that someone would say that they've looked at all the funding out there and that all the grants out there, we know where they are and we've applied for those things. At the end of the day, if this committee and if this council decides it doesn't want to do anything different than what it's doing, then it will continue to get what it's gotten, and that is budget cuts every year into the foreseeable future towards partner agencies. To me, that does not make sense. I have two degrees in social work. I do have a reason why I want to see more funding come to the table. There are all kinds of issues out there that aren't even being addressed in this community. So since I've been on the council for seven years, everything that I've said is with respect to partner agencies, we need to look at how we fund partner agencies. We need to look at do we determine that we're going to spend a percentage of our general fund dollars towards partner agencies. Is there some type of formula that we come up with? But somehow we have to determine how we're going to fund partner agencies that speaks to the need for what partner agencies do. Not just, this is what we've always done, we've allocated this amount of money, so that's the same pot of money that we're going to allocate every year, except for in hard times we cut that. If you look over the years, basically what's happened is we've spent roughly the same amount of money every year, with the exception of the budget cut times, and all we've done is changed out some of the partner agencies. So some are no longer getting funding that used to, et cetera. My vision is that we look at the needs of this community. we figure out ways to bring new money to the table to address the needs of this community. If the community doesn't want to do that, it doesn't have to. If the full council doesn't want to do that, it doesn't have to. We'll continue on the same path that we're continuing on, and with budget cuts every year, we'll continue to cut partner agency funding every year. I talked to Council Member Ford last night, and he said make it to the point where the government, and he said it here today, that the government may not even provide funding for partner agencies. Okay? I guess we could get there. But the forward-thinking way of looking at it is, is there an opportunity to bring new money to the table that's not there today? That's what this original proposal was about. That's what we've been trying to accomplish for the last seven years, starting back with partner agency oversight committee. So we've kind of dwindled down. We don't have as many accounts. We've got almost half our committee is not present today. So I guess I will go ahead and open up the floor to Council Member Henson and then Council Member Ford. And if there's any motions that come out, then we'll address those motions. Oh, are we taking up the motion? I don't know if we could. There was a motion on the floor before we had the conversation, but I would think that we'd have to go back and restate that motion. I'm not sure. If we can just pick that up. As a seconder to that motion, I think it would be much better, much wiser for us to, and we're right up on our two-hour limit and so forth, to just, let's just pull that motion for today. And I think the report out that you give should reflect this conversation and give an accurate sense of where this meeting went and what we discussed and so forth versus bringing a motion forward for the council at that point in time. So moved. I would pull it as a seconder. Okay. And being that the person who made the motion is not here, if that's okay with the committee, that's what we'll do. Okay. I would ask, I know we've got Council Member Ford and Council Member Kay that are up to speak. We have just less than 15 minutes left. There have been questions raised by a couple different people about that letter that went out from the commissioner with respect to the seven funding categories. Is it okay with the committee if we have the commissioner come up and speak to that issue with our remaining time? Is that okay? Okay. Okay. Is it agreeable that we move from the issue that we've been talking about to the application and ask the commissioner to speak to those seven? Okay. So, well, ahead of you on the list, you're not on the list to speak. Ahead of you on the list, we've got two people. So I'm going to ask you as a procedural, are we going to stay on this issue or move to? Oh, you're on the list. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, you have the floor. Thank you. I wanted to ask Commissioner Mills if she would come up, and I have a couple questions. Thank you, Councilman. I know that you've done a lot of work on this, your whole department, and I appreciate that. I wanted to ask about the needs assessment. Is it something that you feel like as a government that we should do? Yes, I think a needs assessment is important, but to that end, I have had some preliminary discussions with the U.K. College of Social Work with Dean Adams and Associate Dean Karen Badger. Both Craig and I met with them. We liked the idea of a needs assessment. We also agreed with Council Member Meyer's idea that students could learn from doing needs assessments. So preliminarily, they have said that they would like to use the funds rather than for student stipends to pay a professor to help develop course material to the tune of about $10,000 a year is what UK College of Social Work would require. Now, as Dean Adams does the estimate, it may be a little more or less than that, but it was definitely under $25,000. They are starting a new graduate-level course in social and community development that this would tie in with nicely. The idea was in the fall semester of 2012, they would use some students to inventory existing needs assessments to put those together as a beginning and see if they could find common threads in what has already been done in this community. From there, the next semester's course would refine that, and they could build that and embed that in that course every fall and spring semester. So it would be an ongoing thing. Dean Adams thought it could either fit in an existing course or they could create a course for that. And those have been our preliminary conversations with them, but that's as much as we have done on that. Okay. So rather than do an RFP, it would make sense to maybe at our next committee meeting get an update if Commissioner Mills can, between now and our next meeting, get with UK and see what we can get arranged. I would be glad to look into that for you all. Do I need a motion? So I would just make a motion that we hold off on an RFP. Okay. And then my other question was about the categories. So do you want to move on into the categories? I think we're good with that. Okay. I, Commissioner Mills, I heard someone comment that when we make those categories, then we place people in a box. And I know, you know, there are many, many needs we're all aware of within our city. and a lot of times getting to the root causes is the key to success and outcomes. And I know the agencies in this room are very, very aware of root causes. It's either, you know, and those categories are there, and many times that is the root cause. but there are other incidents of homeless that would not fit into that category. So I was very concerned for the Salvation Army. I guess I would really like to just remove the categories, but I'd like to have your input. That's to y'all's pleasure whether to put categories in or not. I think we moved in that direction because we were looking at funding programs rather than agencies. We needed something for 2013. We don't have a needs assessment. And I think the Salvation Army made a good point. I talked with Major Ashcraft, and she's been very accommodating, and I was trying to see if we could make what she does fit in the categories we have. It's not our intent to exclude anyone. We would like to include more people. We've had ten agencies already contact our office who haven't been funded in the past. The bigger issue is going to be figuring out how to slice the pie this year than anything else, which I think is maybe a good problem to have that we have so many good works. That being said, as we told you all early on, these categories were chosen from anecdotal information from my social service staff. If we feel like a need like shelter or basic human needs, if this committee feels that that needs to be added or if this committee feels that we need to do away with categories for 2013, we can amend the application. Keep in mind that we have set October 19th as the date for agencies to come for applications. So just within that time frame, whatever this committee wishes to do with the application, we're certainly amenable to it. Okay. I would just make a motion that we remove those categories from the application. Second. You got a motion and a second? Any discussion? Council Member Kaye? Yes. It seems to me that the move towards categories was an attempt to set some policy and to set some parameters around the kind of funding that we want to do. And that's, as you said, Commissioner Mills, that's based on another policy decision, which is to fund programs rather than agencies. I think both those moves are in the right direction. I think that's our job is to set those policies. We want to set them fairly and thoughtfully, but I believe that that's a kind of change that we need to make in the way in which government allocates its resources. I would hate to see the categories go away. They may need to be amended. So I would not be in support of the motion. Thank you. Governor Ford, speaking to the motion, I would offer, if Council Member Henson was willing, to offer a friendly amendment to ask our Commissioner of Social Services to work and report back to this committee of how the categories can be amended in a way that it would not exclude the Salvation Army or similar functions that they provide. I'll offer that as a friendly amendment if Council Member Henson is willing. I guess I have a problem with the categories that if it failed to include emergency shelter, housing, and I know that there are many, many issues in that category, but I do not feel like that it covers all issues that a person could be in emergency shelter. You know, there are other reasons besides mental health, substance abuse, and so forth. And I guess by making these categories, and of course you guys are the experts in social services, But it worries me that there may be others that are not foreseen. And by placing these categories, then is there going to be folks in need that are going to be left out? We won't be able to cover everybody in need in Fayette County. You know, it's sad. We need to look at where we can make the most impact. And basic human needs is important. We also don't cover food in here. We don't cover rent and utility payments for people who've lost their jobs. So I think if there were a basic human needs category, shelter, food, and economic security, that would cover the watershed pretty much. But at some point after the needs assessment, I do think we need to set priorities because we can't fund everything. And we need to decide as a government what is it that's most important or what do we feel are the most critical needs. We're not going to be able to solve any of these problems ever. But which problems can we make the most impact on because human need is greater than ever right now? It's a tough choice. I certainly agree with Council Member Kay as far as funding the program and not the agency. And I will say that we are doing that already. If you look within what the agencies are asking for funds for, a lot of times it's for a specific program. It'll be for adolescent substance abuse counseling. It'll be for senior transportation. So they are asking for specific programs within the funds that we're giving them now. I'll support the amendment. Commissioner, I have a question for you. The amendment to the motion would be that you would come back to us. Timeline-wise, does that work? Well, we meet again on October 18th. Our call for applications is October the 19th. So we could retool the application the day, but we couldn't give advance notice to partner agencies more than one day because unless we change the date, we have already sent out to partner agencies what the date is and where it's going to be. So it will be a matter of notification. What would you recommend? I would recommend that if the committee is comfortable with the basic human needs category, that y'all maybe make a vote on that today. If the Salvation Army would be comfortable with that amendment to the categories. And we could define that as shelter, food, and economic security. And that would also open up the process to some other agencies in the community who may have looked at these and felt like we don't fit. But, for example, God's Pantry or Black Church Coalition, they may then fit. Okay. We're running short on time. That's the reason I'm interrupting you. But what you just said is a great idea, and I'm seeing the head shake yes from Salvation Army. So could we amend your amendment to reflect that change in the category? Yes. And then rather than have her come back. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would offer. Actually, could you rescind your motion, your amendment? I can withdraw. I rescind my amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you. And then could someone make a motion to amend the categories as the Commissioner outlined? So moved. So moved. And we'll get the minutes from the tape. So the motion to enforce to amend the categories as Commissioner stated. Any more discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, that passes or opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay, we're out of time for the day. great discussion we will continue in our next meeting and the topic will be the Commissioners gonna come back with information about what she's doing with UK and we'll talk further about the needs assessment and then also the additional RFP that we talked about today does have a motion to adjourn the second all in favor say aye we're adjourned Thank you. I'm sorry. Ooh, don't you look bad Ooh, don't you look bad Yeah Yeah Yeah It's everybody talking about Stop about me now