To: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa & Los Angeles City Council
Fr: Zuma Dogg
Re: Neighborhood Council Budget and Community Purpose Grants
Dt; 04/17/07
Hey folks,
Found this memo in the trash. Looks pretty interesting:
Below item [5] of City Clerk's letter tells the fact that the total amount of community purpose grants administered by the city clerk is about ten (10) times the combined NC and DONE annual budget, being $ 86 Million. (DONE's annual budget is $4.5 million for the Department andthe same amount for the 88 NC that also receives $4.5, making the bill for Empowerment to be $9 million.
Below item [6] tells that although there are over 1,000 requests for the grant from the city councils' districts, only 8% of the 1,000 applications,was approved. That are the 19 contracts and the 61 items, totaled 80 recipients of the grants out of 1,000 applicants for the grants.
That means if DONE let the City Clerk administer the Neighborhood Purpose Grants (NPG)of the NC budget, the chance of being approved is 8%. Does any one want to try 8% chance of success?
Yes, because the selected 8% can totally get $84 million which means each 1% is $ 6.72 million.
No, upon second thought, it will take a university corporation, a hospital corporation and a big corporation with a large enough payroll to absorb just 1% of the grant money, being $6.71 million for one per cent.
It is better that DONE adminster the grants fund of the NC so that the small concerns and individuals will not be holding the bags. Just keep those money off the hands of those who have conflict of interests (Approving one's own proposal is conflict of interests. That happens when the powerful few of the NC design a budget and no one else gets to discuss about it or has a hand in the operation or receiving any funding).
Lewis Wong,
Former NC director and officer.
Below is the letter and its excerpt.
February 26, 2007
Honorable Members of the City Council
City of Los Angeles
Subject: NEIGHBORHOOD PURPOSES GRANT PROGRAM (CF No. 02-0699)
Honorable Councilmembers:
(Excerpt)
1. DONE currently administers the Neighborhood Council Funding Program whereby Neighborhood Councils receive $50,000 annually. The DONE proposal is for Neighborhood Councils to use up to $12,500 of their annual allocation for the Neighborhood Purposes Grant Program. In effect, DONE is proposing to shift to the City Clerk up to one-quarter of its current funding responsibilities under the Neighborhood Council Funding program. DONE is already structured, staffed for and administering this program.
2. The City Clerk's GCP program is not designed to administer another department's operating program. The reason the City Clerk administers the "Council District Community Services" program, is that the City Clerk functions as the fiscal administrators/accountants for the City Council Office budgets.
3. The City Clerk is in no position to determine whether Neighborhood Purposes Grants are appropriate. This determination should be made by the entity which has the most knowledge of Neighborhood Councils, their boards and activities, and which has an established and ongoing relationship with them. DONE has a field staff that work with Neighborhood Councils on a daily basis and that already evaluate other transactions for legality, conflict of interest and public purpose.
4. DONE's proposal would have a detrimental effect on Neighborhood Councils. It introduces another layer of City departmental review and interface into an existing funding program. In addition, it diffuses rather than focuses accountability for the overall anagement and oversight of the program.
5. The Office of the City Clerk has one Management Analyst and two accounting positions who administer the entire GCP budget ($86 million). The DONE report incorrectly states that this Office has four Management Analysts assigned to one line item within the GCP budget, the Council District Community Services program.
6. The DONE report incorrectly states that the workload for the City Clerk's staff is 500 GCP requests per year. The actual workload for only the Council District Community Services item is over 1,000 requests per year. Additionally, the GCP staff processes the remaining workload of the GCP budget, which represents 19 contracts and 61 line items plus the
monitoring, contract compliance review, payment processing and close out activities for all items.
Neighborhood Purposes Grant Program (CF No. 02-0699)
Conclusion
For the reasons cited above, it is our recommendation that DONE continue to administer all aspects of its Neighborhood Council Funding Program, including the newly proposed element, the Neighborhood Purposes Grant program. If
there are staff resource or training issues within DONE that make this difficult, those issues should be addressed through the established City budget process and perhaps through the deliberations of the Neighborhood Council Review Commission, rather than unilaterally transferring DONE's operational responsibilities to another department.
The Offce of the City Clerk has and continues to provide support to the overall system of Neighborhood Councils through such efforts as: Community Impact Statements; development of Election Procedures; coordination of the Community
Renaming program; clerking the Neighborhood Council Review Commission; and providing offhours training to Neighborhood Councils on the City's legislative process and the information technology tools available to access that information. We stand ready to provide DONE with the forms, procedural guidelines and training necessary to facilitate the administration of their Neighborhood Purposes Grant program.
Sincerely,
Frank T. Martinez
City Clerk
C: General Manager, DONE
Mike Vitkievicz, Director Administrative Services Division, DONE
Kevin McNeely, Neighborhood Council Funding Program Administrator, DONE
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