The Community and Economic Development Committee met 03/22/2023. The one action item they took up was a request to approve the revised Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding for the 2023-2024 program year. When putting together the funding amounts for the various programs, city staff had estimated that the overall CDBG funds the city received from the government would be $589,453. This was based on the average increase in funding the city had received over the last three years. However, the city only ended up being awarded $573,200 in CDBG funds which was about $16,000 less than they had estimated. This necessitated revising down the allocations to various programs. Effected partners included Habitat For Humanity, Rebuilding Together Fox Valley, WWBIC, Boys and Girls Club, LEAVEN, Salvation Army, and Pillars.
The committee voted 4-0 to approve the revised allocations.
I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the discussion for download.
Community and Economic Development Director Kara Homan told the committee that the funding the city received from HUD was lower than they had estimated but still 1.2% higher than last year’s allocation. The funding was used for three different areas
- City Programs/Appleton Housing Authority/Administration
- Non-Public Service
- Public Service
City policy requires that CDBG funds be used to fund city programs first, so staff did not recommend any reductions in funding for the programs in that category. Per HUD requirements, only 15% of a municipality’s CDBG funds could go toward “public service” programs, so the city had to reduce the overall money in that category by $2,437 which they did proportionally to all of the programs in that category by reducing their award amounts by 2.76% The three non-public service programs had each of their awards reduced by 3.71%.
Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) asked what the difference was between Public Service and Non-Public Service programs. Director Homan’s understanding was that Public Service programs directly provided services to individuals (she mentioned that Boys and Girls Club provided street outreach to homeless youth) whereas the Non-Public Service programs were not providing services in as direct a way (she pointed to Habitat For Humanity building houses).
Alderperson Jones also asked what had made staff expect the total award to be higher than it ended up being, to which Director Homan responded that their estimates had been based on the average of the increases in the last three years of awards.
Alderperson Jones asked if the lower-than-expected award amount was due to inflation and what was currently going on with the economy. Director Homan did not believe it was. She said that CDBG funding was budgeted by Congress and then there was a formula for how it was divided between entitlement communities. Appleton was part of the Northeast Wisconsin region, and the entitlement communities within that were Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Appleton, Green Bay, Sheboygan, and Neenah. The administrators looked at things like poverty rates, population, and other factors to determine what each community’s ultimate allocation was. Director Homan did not think inflation figured into that calculation.
Alderperson Jones asked if the various community partners who received funding had been aware at the time the initial award amounts were announced that they were just estimated and that there was the possibility that they would get reduced. Director Homan had not been with the city when the original awards had been made and the other staff members at the committee meeting had not been involved in that process, so she couldn’t say what was communicated to community partners last fall. She did, however, note that her department had communicated with them in advance that they would be making this recommendation to reduce the amounts of the awards.
There were no further questions and the committee voted 4-0 to approve the revised amounts.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1074137&GUID=FC9FCFBF-8D21-4805-B11B-A70D27F66056
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