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(DISCUSSION/ACTION) Possible action to approve recommended contracts with CBO providers, not to exceed $1.5 mil. .
Comm Hale asked if any of these contracting agencies have been working on their program services since July 1. And in reference to an earlier public comment, he asked if the process was indeed that referrals to CBOs could only come through the Probation Dept.
The Chief did not think that the referral process was that restricted, that referrals could come from the courts. It may go through the Dept but does not have to be originated by POs. As to whether contractors are already working, with an understanding that they will be paid for their work from July 1, he wasn’t aware of any doing this that did not already have a current contract in place. He will look into this.
Comm Queen said he has heard the same concern in the past of CBOs not receiving enough referrals from the Dept to fulfill their work plans.
Comm Hale asked if the City Attorney had found out whether the monies (funds) were being used according to legal proscriptions placed on them (specifically the DCYF funds). L. Holmes said he spoke to the Deputy Director of DCYF and forwarded on information to the Commission Secretary to give to the commissioners. Comm Hale said he read that but it did not answer his question, which was, can those dollars be “rfp’d” out? Did the Dept distribute that money consistent with DCYF agreement? L. Holmes said, yes it was.
Comm Fetiçō asked: asked if YCD was accessing all the Dept’s youth. L. Holmes said he has introduced them to most of the Dept’s line staff. They will have stipended slots for youth, and will get jobs for the youth. They are connected to Cityspan, which is a network for finding jobs, and they have a contract for 75 jobs with the new Home Depot.
Comm Fetiçō asked about YGCIC: is the Dept paying for the Director? Ans: no. what is John Knox? He is a staff person who is running all those programs/services until they can get an executive director onboard. L. Holmes said they have an interim acting executive director, Bob Anyon (spelling?) Comm Fetiçō asked about CJCJ: the PrIDE report showed they had no documentation of their program services in the past year, but they are now being funded. L. Holmes said what they did was basically go with the recommendations. He said in the past contractors essentially came up with their own service plans and told the Dept what they were going to do. This time around, the Dept had specific things it wanted the vendor to do. CJCJ will be doing case plans for youth coming out of detention (JH and LCRS). The Chief said that CJCJ provides a service that no other entity or probation is equipped to provide (preparing detention release plans). This is a void now in the Dept. no other providers do this for the Dept.
Comm Ricci commented that the issue of YGCIC was questioned before the current CPO coming on. She asked how Dept staff could be running a non-profit. She also wanted to know how the YGCIC staff was funded and who issues the checks for funds issued and how are they being funded. Who is getting paid to run the CBO and where are they funded from. The previous chief did not respond to this question, and she asked to have it clarified now, to make sure there is no conflict. She asked if the client numbers were accurate (having heard in the past that they did not reach the numbers they were supposed to serve) and if an evaluation had been done on their effectiveness. L. Holmes said there has been a dramatic turn around within the last year. The judges are fond of their programs. YGCIC has taken over the community service program on Saturdays, and the parenting program.
He noted that the entire amount of funds to the YGCIC is not from one source, but a combination of a few: Prop J, and an add-back from the Bd of Supervisors. The Juvenile Probation and Camp funds is about $210K. Holmes also mentioned that they operate Juvy Java, which is essentially the Dept’s café. The Chief offered to make this question of the YGCIC part of the audit by the Controller. Comm. Hale asked about the contract for ICAN. Their population was reduced by more than half, but the total amount of funds is still very high (only reduced by $25K) L. Holmes said that this is the only provider that will be working with the youth while in detention and then working with them after they leave detention, in some aftercare program. They can conceivably work with 125, but they will be providing aftercare services for 50, so both numbers are correct. This is a program operated by two programs, ICAN and Parents Who Care.
The Chief said that the original 125 was what was proposed by the CBO, but the Dept was not going to contract for that many, so the current numbers are what the Dept expect them to work with. Comm Hale had a continuing problem with the brief description of their services, giving him little understanding of exactly what they would be doing. It still isn’t clear why the service level is now less than half of the original amount but the funding level hasn’t been reduced to a proportional level. L. Holmes offered to give the Commission the complete work plans of the vendors. Comm Hale wanted the original and final version of the ICAN work plan.
Comm Hale asked how evaluation of these services would be carried out. L. Holmes said that monthly reports from the CBOs will be entered into the CMS system and they will primarily look at service levels and recidivism rates. He said that of all the evaluations that have been done through the Dept’s programs, the only thing that matters at the end of the day is did the youth recidivate and if not, where are they now? The Chief said there were specific outcome measures that needed to be reached by each contractor, in order to capture the 10% of funds that are held back from their contracts, pending completion of the data collection and successful outcomes of their target population. Comm Hale was not satisfied with just that. Comm Queen commented that maybe the Dept should decide what it would take to do an effective evaluation that will be useful to the Dept, and put together a proposal of staff and resources that will be demanded for this, and then maybe the Commission should take that and advocate for it.
Comm Hale continued to question giving so much to ICAN, and suggested it be reduced, with $30K be transferred to Brothers Against Guns (BAG). He further questioned how BAG got funded when others scored higher. L. Holmes said that BAG was the only one offering to do Saturday program services as the Dept had wanted. He said that, like YGCIC, they provided a program that the Dept felt served the Dept’s needs and was a priority.
L.Holmes said that some of the monies assigned to contractors are not from the $1.5 mil general fund, but other sources that aren’t part of the action on this item.
Comm Hale questioned the process that took place to decide on contractors. It appears to have veered from the RFP process and the “objective” scoring at the end, with the Dept negotiating with CBOs of their choice (not necessarily based on their scores) for certain program services and funding levels that were not proscribed by the RFP. Thus, some CBOs become funded now where they weren’t on the list for funding after the proposal scoring was done.
There was also a short discussion regarding the apparent disparity of funding levels for services, and one explanation given was the number of contact hours in one program vs another program service.
Pres. Stiglich questioned wisdom of the suggestion of changing funding levels between service areas (detention based services and life skills). She asked R. Katz, deputy City Attorney if the Commission could move amounts around like that. R. Katz cautioned them against overstepping their authority and interfering in Dept operations. She said it isn’t clear that this is a budget item that hasn’t already been approved in the overall budget, so this being “individual pie shares” it is an administrative function.
Comm Hale said this was exactly his concern, raised before, about whether the Commission could or could not act on this (his position is they can).
There was a discussion about whether another special meeting should be held to specifically deal with the contracts, whether individual contracts would be dealt with tonight, and whether the Commission needed to, or was able to vote on these contracts at all –per the City Attorney’s opinion that individual contracts were an administrative matter. She advised the Commission against any appearance of bias in speaking about programs (CBOs).
Comm Beijen said the Commission is an oversight body and should not get into administrative functions.
Commissioner Hale stated that he had "read the Charter" and that the Commission was responsible for the "management" of the department.
Comm Queen asked what the Dept felt about the proposals raised. L. Holmes said that the process was long and thoughtful, it was done above board, and should be acted on tonight in order to not delay getting the CBOs paid.
Comm Hale was still not persuaded that the Dept’s rationale for funding ICAN was credible.
The Chief expressed he was troubled by the process, and said they have a laundry list of lessons learned, but they want to get the services approved so the youth can get helped.
He said that in all his discussion with the CBOs he told them that services would not be paid for before the Commission approved contracts. He asked if the Commission was not going to act on them tonight, that they do not act until the Dept can provide them with all the information they want.
Comm Ricci asked if there was a deadline for action on the contracts. L. Holmes said ASAP, as the contractors have already developed their programs, hired staff and begun to implement things they need to get done in order to meet the service targets. Comm Ricci recommended having a special meeting to just thoroughly go through the contracts and decide.
Comm Fetico moved to reduce ICAN by $30K and increase BAG by that amount.
Comm Hale 2nd but both agreed to rescind their action in favor of Comm Ricci’s recommendation.
Pres. Stiglich asked if the Commission couldn’t now just go through each contract and make a decision on approval at whatever funding level?
Comm Ricci agreed with an earlier comment from Comm Queen, that the Dept should ask for more funding to support community based services for its youth.
Comm Queen recommended that the President of the Commission speak with the Mayor about supplemental support for programs. The Commission agreed that the President should contact the Mayor and Bd of Supervisors to add more monies to these programs.
He said that while he wasn’t happy with the situation, he would support approving the contracts with a proviso to increase the monies for them. Comm Hale disagreed. He also hasn’t heard how these contracts fits into the Local Action Plan.
Comm Queen said that he had serious questions about the entire process and choices, and he would agree with Comm Hale’s feeling that the Commission should not fund any programs until the City showed its commitment to support adequate interventions, he didn’t want to hold up funding to the CBOs that need to get on with their work.
Comm Ricci echoed Comm Queen’s opinion that they should act on these contracts while fighting for additional help from the City.
The motion by Comm Queen is to approve the contracts as presented, and to support advocacy for more monies through the Bd of Supervisors process of “add-backs”. Motion 2nd by Comm Beijen.
Comm Hale commented that this is a very dangerous process vis-a-vis public policy because the Commission had no opportunity to adjust the dollars (and a question of whether it has the authority to).
The question was called and upon roll call vote, Comms Beijen, Queen, Ricci, Stiglich voting for, and Comms. Hale, Fetico against, the motion carried.
(public comments)
Louis Rocha, Boys and Girls Club of SF, lamented that they have only received 2 referrals from the Dept for their program services (first time contracting with the Dept) since July. They were told they could not get referrals from other sources. If this trend continues they will be hard pressed to serve the 45 youth they are contracted to work with.
Jessica Hazard, said that many of the questions raised by the Commission could have been answered if the Commission had read the RFP before it went out because many of the questions were covered in the RFP. She said that much of this troubled process was due to the Dept trying to make up for some of the defunded programs from MOCJ.
She said that if the Commission does go for more funding, she encouraged them to advocate for district 4 and 7, which were totally de-funded.
She said the process is disrespectful to the CBOs because it assumes the CBOs are going to keep doing the work (which is what they do) despite not assuring them they will be paid for it before contracts are signed. She was confused by the Chief’s comments about CBOs doing any work before the Commission acted, despite the talk of doing things in good faith. What does this mean about the work done between July1 and now?
She finally announced that there was an upcoming Bd of Supervisors Finance Comm /Gang and Gun Violence mtg on Oct. 11 to discuss supplemental funding.
(A____ Prado?) Boys and Girls Club of SF, introduced briefly what they want to be able to do with the Dept in providing services to the youth.
Shawn Richard, BAG, commented on his own and his organization’s commitment to the work and community. He thanked the Commissioner for his acknowledgement of BAG. He reviewed some of the results of his programs, where the majority of their youth do not re offend.
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