HSC members will convene at City Hall today to ask City Council’s Budget and Finance committee to continue using United Way to administer the City’s human services funding for at least one additional year.
Last fall, facing criticism from Council, the United Way notified the City that it would no longer administer the process effective July 2020. To ease the transition to a new process, however, the United Way has indicated it would consider extending its contract for at least one additional year if a majority of Council agrees.
Recently, Council Member Landsman proposed an alternate process in which the City administration would take over the process. However, the City Manager has projected that the cost of the City taking over the process would cost ~$400K more than the City currently pays the United Way to administer the process, funding that may be diverted from the Human Services Fund.
The Human Services Chamber supports the United Way continuing to administer the process because:
- The process administered by the United Way is a competitive and transparent process that ensures taxpayer funds are spent effectively to achieve maximum results for the community.
- Having the United Way continue to administer the process will provide ample time and opportunity for the human services sector to have input on any changes to the future process, to ensure that it is fair, transparent, competitive, and equitable;
- It will prevent a rushed transition to a new process that could disrupt current contracts and services; and
- It will avoid using as much as $400K from the Human Services Fund for a new process.
“We believe that the process that has been used is a fair, competitive, and transparent process,” Human Services Chamber Executive Director Gina Marsh said at that event. “We would support it going forward, at least for the next year, so that if there are any changes we can have input.”
To learn more about City human services funding and the process for allocating these funds, click here.