City to non-profits: You better have money to get money

El Centro de Accion Social launched a public comment assault on the City Council Monday, bringing in 10 supporters to ask the council to disregard a Human Services Commission recommendation to cut more than $60,000 in funding from the group, including its total $49,000 request for after-school youth education programs at Muir High and Jefferson Middle School.

Mayor Bill Bogaard preemptively halted the assault, allowing three to speak but moving the rest to the end of the meeting, while Councilman Chris Holden suggested the rest of the speakers come back in May when the council makes a final decision on the commission's recommendations, instead of waiting till the end of Monday's meeting.

Below is the official scoring sheet the city is using in order to determine which social service groups get funding through the federal Community Development Block Grant program. It is a great document for big government critics interested in finding out how the city is squandering taxpayer funds on useless social programs like, say, helping poor kids get to college, or providing health workshops for low-income seniors:

CDBG Prelim Funding Recs March 2008.pdf

Note the "did not demonstrate sufficient leveraging" critique that accompanies many of the lower-scoring applicants. That is a major criteria for cities determining which social service groups get the federal funds they administer, and it means that, in essence, an agency has to have secured enough funding through other sources to sustain a program. Basically these CDBG funds can only be used to supplement or augment existing programs, not support an entire program from scratch.