The Community Development Committee met 06/11/2025. All of the action items on the agenda were related to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program. One was a request to approve the 2024 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER), one was a request to approve the 2025-2029 Consolidated Plan For the CDBG Program, and one was a request to approve revised CDBG allocations for the 2025-2026 program year now that the city had received its CDBG dollars from the federal government.
All of the items were recommended for approval unanimously by the committee.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
2024 CONSOLIDATED ANNUAL PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATION REPORT (CAPER) FOR THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) PROGRAM – The city is required to submit this report to the Department of Housing and Urban Development every year. It is basically a summary of how it spent its CDBG funds over the last program year and what the impacts of the program were. This was approved by the Community Development Committee by a vote of 5-0 after no comment or discussion.
2025-2029 CONSOLIDATED PLAN FOR THE CDBG PROGRAM – The 5-year consolidated plan for the CDBG program is another requirement set by HUD that the city needs to meet in order to qualify for grant dollars through the program. The city is supposed to predict how much money they expect to receive through the program and then lay out how they intend to use those funds over the next 5 years.
Community Development Olivia Galyon said that one benefit of the plan was that is gave the city measurable goals and numbers to strive for. Additionally, a significant portion of the report was focused on data regarding the needs of the community, particularly housing needs but also jobs and access to services.
Part of the approval process for the consolidated plan was receiving public feedback and conducting a 30-day public comment period. Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) noted that every year they hold a public hearing and nobody speaks. She wondered if they were reaching the right people to receive public comment on how the city was managing the program.
Ms. Galyon said getting public feedback was a challenge. “I think that overall, not a ton of people know about the community development block grants and what they do in the community.” The Community Development Department was working on improving marketing and increasing public awareness of the program not just among non-profits who were the most common non-city sub recipients of CDBG dollars but also neighborhood groups.
They had conducted a survey to gain public feedback which was highlighted on social media, but they only received about 40 responses. Right now, the city was legally required to only post public notice within the Post Crescent [and I would assume the public notice board at City Hall], but she thought it might be easier to reach people on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
A concern was raised that changes at the federal level would impact the city’s ability to direct funds in the way it had in the past. Community Development Director Kara Homan did not foresee federal changes impacting how the city would run the program, and Ms. Galyon told the committee, “Another aspect of this program is because we’re an entitlement community, as long as we’re following the federal regulations, we’re entitled to those funds each year.” And Congress would have to actually pass a law in order to change how communities used those dollars.
A question was raised about why some of the tables in the report did not include any of the information they were supposed to include. For example, a table that was supposed to show monthly rent for different sizes and types of dwelling units just said “0” across all categories. The report was created with and submitted through HUD’s customized software platform. The tables of information pulled in HUD data automatically, so some of the tables might not fill correctly if HUD didn’t have the source accurately linked. Additionally, trying to pull the report out of the system so that a copy could be provided to the committee could also cause information in tables to not show up. All of the information would, however, be available for HUD to see when the report was submitted.
The committee voted 5-0 to recommend the report be approved.
REVISED 2025-2026 PROGRAM YEAR CDBG ALLOCATIONS – When the city set its preliminary CDBG allocations for the 2025-2026 program year, it had estimated that it would receive $588,232 in CDBG grant dollars from the federal government. It ended up being awarded $575,860 which was within the normal range of the award amounts they had received over the last 5 years but was $12,000 less than they had estimated. As a result, all of the preliminary awards for non-city projects needed to be reduced.
Projects run by the City of Appleton were not reduced except for the Community Resource Navigator which dropped from $88,232 to $86,379. This reduction was necessary because it is considered “public services” which is a category that can only received up to 15% of the total CDBG dollars for the year.
In order to make up the remainder of the reduced dollars, all of the non-city run allocations were reduced by 7.3%.
Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) said that back when the committee had set the preliminary allocations, they had decided to award Pillars the full amount of their request ($36,500) because the project they were using it on was replacement of flooring which was the sort of project it was difficult to get donations for. She was concerned about whether or not they would be able to go forward with that project if they didn’t receive the full $36,500.
Ms. Galyon said that the city had not heard anything from Pillars saying they couldn’t do the project. Additionally, the project Pillars had received CDBG dollars for in the 2024-2025 program year had come in slightly under budget, so they would have some funds left over that could be reallocated to the flooring project.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) asked how the decrease in CDBG funding for the Community Resource Navigator would impact the position. Would the city need to come up with supplemental funding for the position from elsewhere.
Ms. Galyon said that the position was funded partially through the Community Development Department via CDBG funds and then whatever was not covered by the CDBG funds was the responsibility of the Health Department to cover.
There was a discussion about the purpose and value of the Community Resource Navigator. That person basically works with homeless people or people who are about to become homeless and they help connect them with community resources, not simply by telling them about the resources but by making initial calls, scheduling initial appointments, and helping them get to the place they need to be in order to connect with those resources.
Alderperson Pattie Heffernan (District 8) indicated that there were already multiple non-profits in the area that did that work—her own being one of them—and she wondered if the funds going to cover the Community Resource Navigator might be better spent going to those non-profits. Additionally, she noted that those non-profits didn’t pay their community resource navigators as much as the city was paying its Community Resource Navigator.
Ms. Galyon said that the feedback the city had received indicated that some of the non-profits were understaffed and overcapacity. Additionally, the purpose of the city’s Community Resource Navigator was to respond to calls the city received, particularly through the Police Department, and appropriately work with people as a social worker rather than as a police officer.
Director Homan also noted that the budget for the position did not reflect the actual rate of pay but also included health insurance, fringe benefits, travel, and training.
Alderperson Jones commented that she had seen a lot of individuals who “for whatever reason, their relationship with specific organizations that did that were broken. They weren’t allowed to come back or whatnot,” but the city’s Community Resource Navigator was a person that they had been willing to work with.
Director Homan ended up pointing out that the item before the committee was simply to adjust the funding levels, not decided whether or not the position should have been created.
The committee ended up voting 5-0 to recommend the proposed CDBG allocation amounts be adjusted as requested.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1303935&GUID=7A56B24D-54F7-4904-8F0B-3F5A420EFB4E
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