The Little Rock Board of Directors approved contracts for its Prevention, Intervention and Treatment programs Tuesday, awarding about $2.5 million to more than a dozen agencies and nonprofits.
The contracts will fund after-school programs and programs for at-risk youth at targeted sites all over the city. City directors debated the contracts, the city’s funding structure for the programs and the accountability of those programs for almost an hour before agreeing to shorten the contracts and approve them.
The board also agreed to talk about a master planning process for youth services at a board retreat planned next month.
Funding for the programs has been a contentious topic at board meetings for more than a decade, but became more heated when a 2011 citywide salestax increase promised an additional $3 million for the Department of Community Programs, which oversees the the programs’ funding.
Funding in 2012 was held up for several months while the board debated the accountability and reporting methods used by the nonprofits and the Department of Community Programs to gauge success. Several city directors and program managers said Tuesday that they were concerned that the process would be held up again this year.
“We’re already three months into this funding cycle,” said Ward 5 Director Lance Hines, who serves as the liaison to the city’s Children Youth and Family Commission. “I’ve been told by some program directors that they’ve had their doors closed since early January waiting on funding. One woman told me she’s been keeping her program open by funding it out of her own pocket.”
The first of the three funding resolutions proposed awarding $1.2 million to Youth Initiative Programs for children between the ages of 13 and 19 in some neighborhoods. The contract would have been for one year with the option to renew for two additional years.
The approved contracts were for one year, with a one-year renewal option on all three resolutions.
The sites funded include two chapters of the Little Rock Boys and Girls Clubs, St. John Baptist Church, the Family Development Center, Better Community Development, Greater Second Care, Ministry of Intercession, Hunter Methodist Church and Promiseland Community Development Corp.
The second resolution awarded about $1.21 million to nine providers setting up after-school and out-ofschool programs for children between the ages of 6 and 17. Contracts went 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.
A third resolution awarded $160,000 to the nonprofit New Futures for Youth, where Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson works. The contract cut about $30,000 from the agency’s funding.
City directors debated whether Richardson needed to recuse himself, whether to start discussion of a planning process for the programs and youth needs, and whether Richardson’s employment at the agency constituted a conflict.
Richardson requested that the board postpone discussion of a larger youth master plan until he was able to be a part of the conversation. City Attorney Tom Carpenter recommended that as long as contracts were even a minor part of the conversation, Richardson should recuse himself entirely.
The board voted in favor of waiting until a meeting in late April to discuss the proposed master plan, which was requested by Ward 6 Director Doris Wright. Wright said she was concerned that the board had the same argument every time it discussed Prevention, Intervention and Treatment funds, and hoped that a master plan would make some city directors feel more comfortable with the accountability process and ensure her and others that the needs of children were being met.
Wright said at a previous meeting that the programs highlighted to serve children in Ward 6 were not actually serving those children because of where they were located.
Carpenter said he received several questions about Richardson’s role at New Futures for Youth, including several about a staff biography written on the nonprofit’s website, which lists gang-intervention work and other areas funded by the city.
Carpenter sent a letter to the nonprofit’s director Tuesday to clarify Richardson’s role and how he is paid.
Director Mark Perry, who was at the meeting Tuesday, told the board that Richardson’s salary is not paid through any money received from the city. Perry said that as the director, he is in charge of all the divisions within the agency and that the agency would still exist if it did not receive city funding.
At-Large Director Joan Adcock asked whether Richardson’s salary was paid through funding from the Promise Neighborhood grant or through contracts with the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, saying she believed Richardson sat on the board of both organizations.
Perry said Richardson does not sit on the board of directors for the Promise Neighborhood planning group. Carpenter added that Richardson is a nonvoting liaison for the housing agency, which also does not receive city funding.
“I don’t see that to be an issue,” Carpenter said.
Ward 1 Director Erma Hendrix said she wanted to be clear that New Futures does not receive any money filtered through Youth Intervention or after-school program contracts.
“We seem to be spending an awful lot of time on [City] Director Richardson’s salary and his position at New Futures, so let’s get all of this out of the way for the public now,” she said.
City Manager Bruce Moore said that the only contract that pays money to New Futures is the direct contract approved separately by the board.
New Futures for Youth was created in 1988 through a five-year Annie E. Casey Foundation grant focusing on providing intervention and youth-based services to at-risk youths. The organization started the city’s first organized gang-prevention efforts in the early 1990s.
The city began funding Prevention, Intervention and Treatment programs after a 1993 voter-approved city sales-tax increase created a funding stream for them as well as other city programs.The city’s Department of Community Programs started not too long after.
Both New Futures for Youth and the city’s Prevention, Intervention and Treatment program have been touted across the country as being at the forefront of youth intervention efforts.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/27/2013