City Commission restores grant funding to GRACE Marketplace and other nonprofits
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a June 14 Special Meeting, the Gainesville City Commission heard proposals to cut expenses in the coming fiscal year and restored grant funding to GRACE Marketplace and other organizations.
Communications and Marketing
The Communications and Marketing Department proposed cutting 1.5 vacant positions for a savings of $109,262, eliminating closed captions for all meetings except City Commission and General Policy Committee meetings (which could prohibit the City from streaming or posting videos of those meetings) for a savings of $37,000, eliminating telephone town halls for commissioners for a savings of $26,000, and eliminating Longest Table/Immigrant Fair funding for a savings of $9,000, for an overall decrease of $143,713 or 12.8%.
The commissioners had no comments or questions following the presentation.
Financial Services
The Financial Services Department shifted the funding for one position from the General Fund to the RTS Fund for a savings of $105,466 and reduced operating expenses by $200,000, but salaries and benefits increased for an overall increase of $45,493 or 1.2%.
Human Resources
The Human Resources Department eliminated four vacant positions for a savings of $322,626, reduced operating expenses by $108,368, and eliminated the Public Service Academy Program (previously a pilot program) for a savings of $500,000, for an overall decrease of $731,772 or 23.7%.
Commissioner Ed Book noted that the Human Resources Department had made “rather substantial changes” to its budget and thanked the Department.
Technology
The Technology Department reduced operating expenses by $117,898, but salaries and benefits increased by $89,022 for an overall decrease of $28,876 or 1.4%.
Office of Management & Budget
The Office of Management & Budget proposed eliminating three filled positions (including the Smart City Coordinator) and two vacant positions for a savings of $503,103 and reducing operating expenses by $290,068, but Programs are projected to increase by $48,070, for an overall decrease of $695,694 or 32.8%.
Commissioner Casey Willits asked what the Smart City Coordinator does; Steve Varvel, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the position was added in 2017 or 2018, and “they are the single-source focal point for coordinating Smart City efforts across departments. We’re not going to stop Smart City efforts, it will just not be a centralized function any more.”
Risk Management
Risk Management will be rolled into the Office of Management and Budget in October, eliminating the filled position of Risk Management Director. The department is also eliminating a vacant part-time position for an Occupational Health Nurse; the two positions add up to a savings of $224,486. The department projects an overall decrease of $3.5 million, or 8.6%. Varvel said most of the reduction is due to an expected decrease in insurance claims.
Mayor Harvey Ward asked about the elimination of the Director position, and Varvel said he has been planning and preparing the people who work for him to “not miss a beat” when he retires.
Ward thanked Varvel for his personal sacrifice and said it was “a good opportunity to make sure everyone is fully aware that we are in the process of responding to what we were asked to do by the legislature and make these cuts.”
Transportation
The Transportation budget reflected a reduction in operating expenses but an increase in administration, for an overall increase of $537,292, or 7%.
Non-Departmental Expenses
Non-departmental expenses include debt service payments, insurance expenses, and programs. The proposed budget reduction is about $2.9 million, or 8.4%. The proposed budget included 50% cuts in grants to a number of organizations, including GRACE Marketplace ($750,000), At-Risk Youth Seed Grant ($250,000), Early Learning Coalition ($37,000), Freedom in Motion Program ($18,100), PRCA Outside Agency Funding ($71,250 in grants to 14 organizations), and Special Events Additional Support Grants ($25,172 to four events). City Manager Cynthia Curry later clarified that the At-Risk Youth Seed Grant is set-aside funding for a future program and was fully funded, not cut by 50% like the other grants.
Commissioner Bryan Eastman said GRACE Marketplace isn’t just another nonprofit because the City has a contract with the organization to provide homeless services. The City currently spends $1.5 million a year on the low-barrier shelter at GRACE, while the County spends $1.5 million a year on permanent supportive housing. Eastman said he understood there would need to be cuts, but he preferred a 20% cut. He asked the City Manager whether she could find about $250,000 to restore to GRACE. Curry said that, given the cuts already made to various City departments, that money would need to come from the fire or police departments.
Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said she hoped GRACE could find a way to “revisit their budget” because she did not favor cutting fire or police services. Commissioner Reina Saco said cutting GRACE’s budget would increase costs in other areas, particularly police and EMS: “So it’s kind of a scale where you get to a point where any reduction beyond a certain point does not actually help anyone–not the City, not GRACE, and not the people it serves.”
Going back to the presentation, Curry said that with the added revenue from a one-mill increase in property taxes (estimated at $14.9 million), the City is still at a deficit of about $1.7 million. She said the chart in the presentation wasn’t completely up-to-date because she had put Ironwood back into the budget on “management watch” for FY24. Curry had also added the Fare Free Program back (free bus fare for people over 65 and under 18 years of age) for $115,000.
Ward told the commissioners that they needed to provide feedback on expenses to the City Manager so she can continue to work on balancing the budget. He also pointed out that the City is in the third year of a five-year contract with GRACE for $1.5 million a year and that if they repurposed $300,000 in ARPA funds that were allocated to GRACE for renovating a building and added that to the $750,000 in the proposed budget, they would still be at a deficit of $450,000 on that contract. He added, “When we cut GRACE funding, we’re not saying ‘get by with less’; what we’re saying, effectively, is that we’re okay with more people sleeping downtown. And I don’t mean that in any kind of pejorative, ethical sort of way, but that’s just what it ends up being: people don’t get a place to sleep, and they’re not going to go away.”
Ward encouraged other organizations to “step up” and provide funding for homeless services. He added, “We are in a difficult situation, City of Gainesville, because we do have a manufactured budget crisis on our hands.” He said the people at GRACE come from both the city and the county: “Just saying, there are other responsibilities, other opportunities for other institutional partners to actually be direct partners in this operation.” He said the public safety budgets are up 16.9% and clarified that he wasn’t talking about cutting them, just “finding some places where you can shave $450,000 from that $9.9 million that we’ve agreed to increase public safety budgets.”
Chestnut said she was happy to see free bus fares back in the budget, and she said she would like to see the Cultural Arts Coalition funded at $25,000, but she was not in favor of fully restoring GRACE funding unless they decided to “bring our own people back and provide for the senior citizens… I think we need to go to the community… [to] help come up with the $750,000, but we cannot balance senior citizens, children, all of our other programs on the backs of the homeless. I’m sorry.”
Interim Director of Equity & Inclusion Zeriah Folston told commissioners that his department had cut another position since the previous budget workshop, for a total decrease of about $164,000. Deputy Clerk Zanorfa Lynch announced that the Clerk’s Office also had additional cuts that would be announced soon.
Motions restore $450,000 in grants
Book made the following motion:
- Approve ARPA funding of $300,000 that is currently allocated for a building project to other GRACE uses;
- Send a chair letter to the Alachua County Commission and ask them to modify their allocation for homeless services to provide more direct allocation for GRACE.
Chestnut seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously.
Eastman made a motion to restore the $71,250 in PRCA funding, restore the $25,172 in SEAS grants, allocate an additional $300,000 to GRACE Marketplace from the General Fund (which would bring GRACE to $1.3 million), and restore the Early Learning Coalition and Freedom in Motion grants. Curry said that along with the cuts to the Equity & Inclusion and Clerk’s Offices, she should be able to find the funds in police and fire overtime. The motion, which added about $450,000 to the previous $1.7 million deficit, passed unanimously.
After some discussion about whether the $25,000 for the Cultural Arts Coalition was included in the previous motions, Chestnut made a motion to restore the funding, and that motion also passed unanimously.
” we have a manufactured budget crisis” according to ward. Never miss a chance to blame others for your incompetence and ignorance, Buddy you don’t have a clue , do you?
Ward needs to be removed by the State or recalled by voters. His constant, robotic assertion that the city’s budget crisis is “manufactured”, or in other words “fake”, is a pathetic failure of leadership. The city’s debt, degraded credit rating, and increasing State oversight are proof that we have a crisis.
For years the GCC had an unlimited, backdoor way to tax Gainesville citizens by stealing from GRU funds and using that money to lock us into bad business deals and one-sided contracts.
GRU raised rates, and the ratepayers grumbled about the utility, not realizing that Ward and his cronies on the GCC are the ones stealing out of citizen’s pockets.
Ward’s as much of a fake dad as he is a leader. Thanks to his relationship with Poe, he’s well versed in backdoor relationships. Hopefully the State will shove something in the backdoors of City Hall and close them.
Ward promised JLAC aggressive action on budget, but overall nothing substantial has materialized, never will. ALL departments should be required to cut a similar percentage as HR did, cut grants 50% and phase in a pay cut of 5% for employees whose pay is $100k sliding to 10% for those making $120k and above. Cut completely all new trial programs, phase out Grace (does NOT save police and fire responses but actually ATTRACTS people states away to come!).
These people have lost their freaking minds. No other explanation. It’s like they are living in an alternate reality.
It’s going to be interesting to see what they are going to do after the Governor signs the GRU bill taking it over and stopping all of the money transfers to the city.
Another note the president who is a idiot democrat said that Covid is over why are they still wearing face diapers
Um, no. No one said covid is over GH. The emergency has been declared over. There are still thousands of people nationwide contracting covid. Why does it upset your little world if someone wears a mask?
Joe: you’re a whack job. The masks are a psychological tool for people to stay away and a political statement for the liberal commie Marxist control freak.
And you are a buffoon
That’s how they get special funding knucklehead.
Joe, why dont you ask the WHO inventers of the China Flue that contracted Dr Feivels Wuhan Flue First to disrupt the orchastrated Biden / Bama Basement Election????
Sorry Joey did I hurt your feelings by calling Biden a F’ ing idiot sometimes the truth hurts
She was absent the next day, on the 15th, when they had a meeting that lasted all day and into the evening. Willits was on Zoom, and Saco didn’t participate at all. Maybe Jennifer knows why she wasn’t there. The mask didn’t work, if she got sick anyway. She has lots of mixed up ideas and magical thinking, like a child.
I was thinking exactly the same…
Why the face diaper? Because they’re fricking liberal idiots.
Yes, GNV has a “manufactured budget crisis”, past GNV CC and Mayors manufactured it! No one else!
Reduction in Force (RIF), and suspension of services, and projects, that are not core essential is called for. Quit trying to nickel and dime the budget and in the end not make any cuts, also known as sacrifices! Public safety, infrastructure, and health, are core responsibilities of the CC and Mayor. People can wait for the DEI director to tell them they are underserved, marginalized, or being discriminated against because they are members of minority groups! There are laws against these practices and infractions should be reported! Sorry, neither Dems or Repubs have performed well in stamping out racism, discrimination, prejudice, etc! Report the lawbreaker, we don’t need new laws for minority interest groups!
Quit ripping American taxpayers off with your mis-use of ARPA funds for CC pet projects! Use of ARPA funds should be discontinued, but the Dems have to keep their constituents on the dependency hook! That’s how they roll, get reelected!
What is the “at risk youth seed grant”? Is that the new and very expensive Reichert House 2.0? ARPA funds should not be tapped and if you do you better ensure it will be forthcoming as most of those funds are not to be repurposed without possibly creating a “manufactured illegal use of funds” by the city that will not be reimbursed. Nice to know their going to “management watch” the 3 year old million dollar deficit at Ironwood. Who was watching it for the past three years? Ironwood is a business run by the city so make it breakeven by charging what it takes to run it, or sell it to a contractor that can. City employees to run a golf course is obsurd. Does that 70 to 100 users a day actually pay to use it?
They have to serve their biggest campaign donors, that’s why.
“Interim Director of Equity & Inclusion Zeriah Folston told commissioners that his department had cut another position since the previous budget workshop, for a total decrease of about $164,000.”
That whole department, that wasn’t even heard of a few years ago, needs to be eliminated. It’s wrong to use taxpayer money to imbed Democrat party ideology into local government.
Part of the long march through the institutions.
Eliminating that whole department to find savings is low hanging fruit. I’m curious how much money that would save.
Imbed communist, no longer Dem ideology. The latter failed their most gullible Black voters.
Smoke and mirrors, as usual. With an outrageous budget of $150 million for this small city, they could cut less than $2 million? Really? I noticed a lot of $100,000+ jobs being shifted around. Why are these unnecessary public servants being given more money than what the citizens they represent earn?
Whores are expensive in Gainesville.
Unless you’re homeless, then it’s free.
What about the $500,000 that was allocated for Saco’s Spanish translation hotline. I have never heard another word about that substantial amount of money. Saco looks like she’s turning green, by the way. Oxygen does a body good.
Wait until it sinks in with property owners how much their property tax bills will be going up. They’ll be packing city hall.
Ward needs his backside packed…Poe isn’t there anymore but with the defunding of meetings, pretty sure something’s happening in those dark rooms.
These regressives can’t stop spending. These budget meetings are a charade until they can start getting additional money from the higher taxes they are going to impose on you. In the end, you will pay at least as much, or more. You want to save your hard-earned money from going to a government which abhors American values like home ownership? Then lobby your state legislators to get rid of that government. That will save everyone money.
“Commissioner Casey Willits asked what the Smart City Coordinator does; Steve Varvel, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the position was added in 2017 or 2018, and “they are the single-source focal point for coordinating Smart City efforts across departments. We’re not going to stop Smart City efforts, it will just not be a centralized function any more.”
So, this position was added 6 years ago and is apparently completely unnecessary? Steve Varvel says the city is not going to stop those efforts, but what are they and what is their budget impact? Why are these programs off the table?
It’s hard to find any real info, like most phony government programs that only serve to employee the con artists that dreamed them up.
The number one priority seems to be addition of “smart benches” in Gainesville–solar powered benches with USB chargers, sensors for monitoring foot traffic, and touch screens giving into about the city’s other pointless wastes of tax dollars.
The second priority is adding free wifi in parks. Parents already have cellphones. Kids are there to play, not stare at a tablet screen. Who exactly is this for? The homeless?
The alarming part is Willets didn’t even know what it did. He’s not so smart is he?
The State needs to bring one person to audit the city. That person needs to do one thing to determine if a position is needed, “In 2 minutes, tell me what your role here is.”
Kissing arse and playing with yourself do not qualify. Those positions they “added” over the past couple years weren’t needed or required and now taxpayers are having to foot the bill.
You liberals, you have got to be some of the dumbest voters to keep falling for this group and their ideologies. Maybe they should rescind your voting rights or at least have you meet some qualification standard.
Why are they putting Ironwood on ‘management watch’ rather than the totality of active recreation facilities? Do all the ballfields, basketball courts, tennis courts and swimming pools show a profit?
I’ve seen no evidence, but are commissioners drug tested?
They just simply won’t respond to that question. They walk away from that like the Brainless Basement Clown in DC
Probably by the part time nurses…they always pass. It’s part of the contract.
“The Transportation budget reflected a reduction in operating expenses but an increase in administration, for an overall increase of $537,292, or 7%.”
“Risk Management will be rolled into the Office of Management and Budget in October, eliminating the filled position of Risk Management Director. The department is also eliminating a VACANT part-time position for an Occupational Health Nurse; the two positions add up to a savings of $224,486. The department projects an overall decrease of $3.5 million, or 8.6%.”
Commissioner Bryan Eastman said GRACE Marketplace isn’t just another nonprofit because the City has a contract with the organization to provide homeless services. He should be worried about the contract city leaders have in the best interests and good of the TAXPAYING residents of the city.
Commissioner Reina Saco said cutting GRACE’s budget would increase costs in other areas, particularly police and EMS: “So it’s kind of a scale where you get to a point where any reduction beyond a certain point does not actually help anyone–not the City, not GRACE, and not the people it serves.” So the people the city invites, who don’t “pay their fair share” and cause the costs of our living here to rise, are the ones who benefit at our expense. It would be cheaper to buy everyone a one way ticket out of town…send the commissioners with them.
Anyone else asking WTF is/has been going on here? These idiots are going to continue raping the taxpayers for everything they can.
To This May Work… I thought the same thing. GPD practically lives at Grace Market. Most of the people on mugshots live at Grace. Transferring the funds to police and EMS is ____(insert any politically incorrect term). Sacco and Eastman are delusional. So are the people who voted for this hot mess.
So cutting overtime for police and fire really means less police and fire coverage! It takes OT to fill all of the open positions.
What the hell is the Public Service Academy Program? $500,000?
I believe it’s a certification pipeline for anyone who wants to pursue a career in the broad service structure of police, fire/emergency and health fields. I’ve never seen any data but many say it’s a good opportunity for some. Seems expensive.
Two ‘PART TIME’ occupational nurses, almost $225,000.
Maybe Harvey gets personalized prostate exams.
Am I reading this wrong? It seems every position eliminated is over $100,000.