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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSouth Bend 2020 Budget Wrap-up Questions 2019-10-14COMMUNITY INVESTMENT 1. Given that $2.5 million dollars is expected to go towards affordable housing initia tives, can you share the expected amount of both civil and federal dollars that will go specifically towards home repair, and into which census tracts? Please specify by program type ( CDBG, HOME, civil funds, etc.). Funding Year Type Amount Location Activity 2020 CDBG $300,000 Census tracts: 2, 4, 5, 6, 19, 20, 21, 23 (partials) Owner occupied home repair 2020 City $250,000 Census tracts: 2, 4, 5, 6, 19, 20, 21, 23 (partials) Owner occupied home repair 2020 CDBG $128,281 Census tracts: 2, 4, 5, 6, 19, 20, 21, 23 (partials) Owner Occupied Home Repair Rebuilding Together 2019* CDBG $349,112 Census tracts 4,5,21,23 (partials) Owner occupied home repair 2019* City $600,000 Census tracts 4,5,21,23 (partials) Owner occupied home repair *available due to timing of receipt of funds 2. Can you explain how you will ensure that local minority contractors are hired to repair homes? Any contractor who wishes to participate in the Home Repair program is asked to complete a one-page reference form. References are checked. Contractors must be licensed and bonded with the Building Department and provide documentation of such. They will then be included, per their specialty, in the appropriate solicitation of bids. Additionally, the City has recently released its MWBE Disparity Study which is expected to set targets and goals for contracting with women and minority contractors for all city related work. 3. How much funding is anticipated to go toward owner-occupied rehab and renter- occupied rehab? Moreover, if dollars are set to go toward renter-occupied rehab, how will the City ensure that landlords do not increase rents for renters? There is no funding allocated for non-owner occupied home repair. 4. Questions regarding the status of last year’s home repair pilot program: a. How many households applied? 107 applications were received. 2 applications were withdrawn, leaving 105 for processing. b. How many and what percent of applicants were approved? Of the total 105 reviewed - 6 (or 5.7%) were denied as they did not meet basic program guidelines. The balance of 99 are considered approved until or unless the inspection process results in a determination that the property cannot proceed. c. What percent and number of applicants fell outside of and within the designated impact areas? Applications were only mailed to households within the target area. d. How many and what percent of applicants were approved and received funding? 17 (or 16%) : 11 completed/6 awarded to a contractor. The remaining applicants are currently going through the inspection and bidding process. e. What was the average amount awarded? $12,293.51 per property f. What were the primary reasons as to why applicants were denied? 6 (or 5.7%) were denied as they did not meet basic program guidelines. g. How many and what percent of applicants did not complete their applications? None. All completed applications. We are following up with 12 for updated information. 5. Can the Industrial Revolving Loan fund be used to improve the Drewery’s site? No. The Federal guidelines for the program do not allow this use of funds. 6. What will happen with the $400k set aside for clean-up work at Drewery’s? How might the City be able to work with the owner around remediating the site before the Winter comes since this money is already set aside and bids for the project are closed? The City would like to see the owner respond to the cleanup mandate by IDEM before discussing the future use of these funds. 7. $485k is line-itemed for the acquisition and redevelopment of properties. What exactly will the City do with these properties? How can existing community organizations work with the City to acquire properties so that those with dilapidated houses might rehabbed by local contractors and used to provide affordable housing? We have $150,000 allocated for acquisitions. These funds are primarily related to legal costs for vacant lots (not houses) acquired through the tax sale process. The City has used these lots to incentivize neighborhood development with partners such as the NNN, 466Works and Cross Community. 8. Does the City plan to apply for funding through the Federal Home Loan Bank in order to make more dollars available for affordable housing projects? The FHLB has 4 housing related programs with competitive funding available which has a cap for each member institution. Given the below information, the City believes other entities are in a better position to address the requirements and timeframes of the funds. • (AHP) Affordable Housing Program: These funds have been applied for by local non-profits as part of the funding for large projects such as tax credit projects. The entity that will own the project must be the applicant. • (HOP) Homeownership Opportunities Grant: Must be applied for by the member institution for mortgages the member institution originates. • (AMP) Accessibility Modifications Program: The City is aware that Habitat has applied for these funds through the member institution for like programs they operate. Per Habitat AMP is restricted to those 62+ years, and more for interior modifications. The application period does not begin until HUD issues new annual income limits, so it is an unknown timeframe each year. • (NIP) Neighborhood Impact Program: The member institution must be the applicant. The South Bend Green Corps program assisted homeowners/1st Source Bank with the applications for this program in 2019 and plans to do this again in 2020. PUBLIC WORKS 1. Will “traffic calming” dollars be allocated for the Northwest side of town? Specifically along streets such as Johnson and Huey; streets where there are problems with fast moving traffic/vehicles? There is $400k allocated for this program. Traffic calming has been prioritized in six areas of the City, including the Lincolnway West Gateway in 2020 – we understand that speeding traffic is the major concern of this neighborhood and speed humps will more than likely be the solution on various streets. 2. What census tracts and streets will receive curb and sidewalk funding? Is Napier street on the list? There are two curb and sidewalk programs. The first program is a reimbursement program where the resident and City share the cost of the sidewalk. The resident signs up for the program and then gets the curb and/or sidewalk repaired. After it is repaired and inspected, the City reimburses the resident for a portion of the costs. There are 3 low-income target areas where the reimbursement rate is double the rate in other areas of the City. See brochure at: https://southbendin.gov/wp- content/uploads/2019/06/pwd.curb_.sidewalk.brochure.2019- Final.pdf?_ga=2.9322556.826210565.1570585244-895633181.1556303222 The second program is a Councilmember allocation program. Each City Councilmember has an allocation of curb and sidewalk. The members put lists together of curb, sidewalk, and ADA ramps that are in poor or very poor condition in their districts. They only have a small allocation each year. We will not know if Napier St. is on the list until we receive the lists from Councilmembers. 3. What streets and census tracts will receive street paving funding? There is $4.2 million set aside. Every street in South Bend is assessed each year and given an assessment rating called a PASER rating. The City Engineering department uses this assessment combined with the functional classification of the street to determine an Adjusted PASER Rating(APR). This rating determines which streets are paved every year. The lowest rated streets get paved first until we run out of paving funding for the year. This analysis is started in late Fall but is not completed until early Spring. This allows us to see if any streets were severely degraded over the winter that would require a re-rating. SOUTH BEND POLICE 1. There’s a line item in the SBPD budget for implicit bias training. What’s the expected dollar amount that will go towards this training and what percent of total training dollars will go towards this particular training? The Police Training Budget includes $185,000 in fund 220, Law Enforcement Continuous Education, and $20,000 in Fund 216, Police State Seizures. In addition, portion of Overtime budget is applied towards training. Some training is provided by the State, free of charge, even though overtime might need to be paid to officers attending. The Training budget does not specify amounts allocated to different type of training, however Implicit Bias training is built into the curriculum provided to officers extensively. 2. What is the scope of the bias training? How often is it given and how is it administered? Bias training is covered in Police Academy trainings, as well as post-basic classes at the police department (through Human Resources/Diversity & Inclusion). There’s also yearly state-mandated training that is scenario-based, which contains elements of bias training, procedural justice, cultural awareness, and police legitimacy training. Those elements are incorporated into nearly every training by the department. 3. Why is the Cadet program underutilized? We are not receiving enough applications for these positions—the challenge is similar to difficulties surrounding normal recruiting for the department. 4. Is there a detailed budget showing the expected revenue to be generated from fines and fees? One that lists where dollars are generated by each fine and fee. Here is the breakdown of what is included in the proposed budget. Court collected Fees and Fines included several different ordinance fees, but are not listed by type of fee. Fines and Fees Collected by the Police Department 2020 Proposed Budget Impound Towing Fees $ 10,000.00 Court Collected Fines & Fees $ 10,000.00 Accident Reports $ 80,000.00 Gun Permits $ 40,000.00 False Alarm Fees $ 100,000.00 Other Fines and Fees $ 1,200.00 Total $ 241,200.00 5. How does SBPD currently recruit minority officers and how does it plan to recruit minority officers next year? Any changes in strategies? The South Bend Police Department uses a number of strategies for recruiting, including but not limited to: cookouts and community outreach events, walking patrols, the high school CTE program, military returns, school resource officers, social media, and word of mouth. These strategies are based in the idea that building trust with residents early will improve recruiting efforts in the long run. We are constantly reviewing best practices and ideas from all over the country, and recently started running Facebook ads from this type of review. However, there is no easy solution to an issue that departments are facing nationwide. A recent blog post on Police Recruiting and Police Recruiting Data (see https://southbendin.gov/2019/08/01/police-recruiting-data/) has a list of recent changes that PD has implemented to streamline + improve the recruiting process for all applicants since 2018. It also lists the recruiting constraints from Indiana. That being said, PD is still seeking more ways to improve the process with the goal of increased recruits and better diversity. This has been an identified goal of the SB Stat (performance management) program since 2017. In 2019, the Department started more social media ads and outreach which it plans to continue next year (2020). In 2019 PD also started staggering recruiting cycles for greater efficiency, creating more opportunities for people to apply and start the process. PD has also identified key policy changes it will examine in consultation with the Mayor's Office including revisiting drug policies and understanding how the physical test might be changed to improve recruitment while maintaining standards. 6. Given renewed concern around minority officer retention and recruitment, does SBPD conduct exit interviews for officers who leave the force? Exit interviews are handled by the Department of Human Resources. They are not mandatory, but each officer has the opportunity to partake. 7. The Chief reported in the budget meeting on the department’s significant amount of community outreach as measured by 1) the number of different activities the department sponsors, and 2) giving some examples of success stories of participants. Based on this high volume of community engagement, how has that not translated into successful recruitment of new officers? In essence, what other data is collected (or could be collected) to measure successes of these programs? We have detailed data on all applications submitted on or after April 2017 (Implementation of My Staffing Pro). Of the 24 police officers that were hired since that time, only 8 self-selected to offer information on where they learned about the application/opportunity: (Other = 2, Employee Referral = 2, Job Fair = 1, City Website = 1, Word of Mouth = 1, Job board = 1). This is something that the Department of Innovation & Technology will monitor in partnership with the Police Department. The more applicants that opt to share their referral data, the better we can react to that feedback and understand who comes to the hiring process through a community engagement program. With more time and data, we should be able to track this question through the SB Stat Program and better understand how increased engagement and/or other methods is influencing recruiting. This is very important and likely something that will take time to see impact, just as it takes time to build and earn trust. 2020 budget hearing documents can be found here: http://docs.southbendin.gov/WebLink/Browse.aspx?startid=287181&row=1&dbid=0&cr=1