The Little Rock Board of Directors spent more than an hour debating proposals to award portions of the city’s Prevention, Intervention and Treatment funds at Tuesday’s agenda meeting.
The board will vote next Tuesday on whether to award more than $2.5 million in contracts in 2013 for after-school programs and programs for at-risk youth. Several city directors raised concerns with the contracts, including how the recommended programs were chosen and their funding sources in addition to city money.
Several city directors said they couldn’t vote for the contracts as they were presented.
“I would feel a lot more comfortable if I knew there was a youth master plan,” said Ward 6 Director Doris Wright. “That there was specific research with parameters and census data. Tell me all the funding out there and where the city fits into the matrix, and make sure we are getting the most bang for our buck out of this money.”
Similar concerns delayed awarding the 2012 contracts until July. With the comments Tuesday, the city may be facing another year of delays in funding programs to intervene with at-risk youths, provide summer youth employment and help convicts return to society after prison.
Little Rock was on the front line of funding the programs, which fall under the city’s Department of Community Services, when the Prevention, Intervention and Treatment program was created in 1988.
Funding for the department increased by $3 million as part of the 2011 citywide sales-tax increase approved by voters. The allocation took the department’s funding to more than $5.5 million.
Some of the new money will be used to pay for a portion of the city’s contribution to the salaries of community police officers at schools
Another portion of the new money was used in 2012 to fund the sidewalk-construction test program, which hired 10 parolees and taught them construction skills, as well as life skills such as conflict resolution.
Because of the delay in funding last year, a portion of the Prevention, Intervention and Treatment funds that were unused are supposed to roll over to the 2013 funding cycle. According to budget documents from 2012 expenditures, about $1.02 million was left unspent from last year’s allocations.
City directors have raised concerns for half of the department’s 25-year life over whether the funded programs were making a difference for troubled youths.
The funding up for a vote next Tuesday would give $1.2 million to Youth Initiative Programs for children between 13 and 19 in targeted neighborhoods. The proposed resolution would award the funding to nine agencies, including two chapters of the Little Rock Boys and Girls Clubs, St. John Baptist Church, the FamilyDevelopment Center, Better Community Development, Greater Second Care, Ministry of Intercession, Hunter United Methodist Church and Promiseland Community Development Corp.
Another resolution would give about $1.21 million to nine programs that would set up after-school and outof-school programs for children between ages 6 and 17. The resolution would award funding to Pulaski County Youth Services, Guiding Others to Deliverance, Our House, Faith Care, Little Rock Boys and Girls Clubs, In His Image Youth Development Center, Life Skills for Youth Inc., Positive Impact for Youth and Promiseland Community Development Corp.
The last resolution would award $160,000 to the nonprofit New Futures for Youth, where Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson works. Richardson was out of town at a conference Tuesday. The resolution would cut more than $30,000 from the agency’s 2012 contract levels.
Several city directors raised concerns about the increase in funding for organizations that seemed to be helping the same number of children. The average award increased from about $60,000 in 2011 to about $75,000 in the 2013 requests.
City directors also asked how it was determined which organizations offered help in which neighborhoods. Wright asked why Promiseland, which has a South University Avenue address, was included in the programs aimed at west Little Rock neighborhoods such as the John Barrow neighborhood in her ward.
“There’s no way you’re addressing kids in the John Barrow area,” she said. “This is just too much money for me to tell my constituents their kids are not getting to participate in this.”
Ward 5 Director Lance Hines, who serves as a liaison on the Children Youth and Families Commission, said the commission approved the recommendations. He said at least two programs were being tested in Ward 6 through Pulaski County Youth Services.
Wright said she would rather see the money diverted to pay for youth sports programs in her ward.
Ward 7 Director B.J. Wyrick asked that the board be given more information about the organizations and their programs.
“Every time this comes up, there’s less and less information on these programs,” she said. “I have questions about how many kids will be served, will there be transportation. And a lot of those details are worked out after we approve the contracts. I don’t know enough about these programs to say yes.”
Several of the city directors’ concerns focused on awarding a contract to New Futures for Youth. Ward 3 Director Stacy Hurst asked for detailed explanations of what the organization does, noting its role in training other organizations to follow the rules was worrisome for her.
“We have to spend money to make sure they are in compliance … that is not a wise use of public money,” she said.
At-Large Director Joan Adcock asked whether New Futures was chosen fairly because of who was on the committee looking at the contracts.
“Two or three people onthat committee have a relationship with New Futures and its staff,” she said. “A close friendship is a conflict and with 189,000 people in this city, we could surely find people who did not have a friendship or a known conflict.”
City Attorney Tom Carpenter said the city had defined a conflict of interest as a financial conflict, not an issue of friendship.
“Historically, one of the things that has been done, is seeking people who are involved in that arena to serve on these committees because they have specific expertise,” he said. “It wouldn’t do anybody any good to have me on a committee to award a contract for reading programs for youth, because I know nothing about reading programs for youth. It’s very difficult to get somebody with some degree of background who doesn’t know the people in those arenas.”
Adcock asked Dorothy Nayles, the director of the Department of Community Programs, if she wanted to move the technical support and training functions into the department’s internal responsibilities. Nayles said the move had been discussed, but more study and more people would be necessary to make it work.
City directors asked for more information on the organizations’ funding sources, their duties and the award process before next Tuesday’s meeting.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 03/13/2013