The ACC Commission shot down a small funding request for a community organizing and empowerment program run by Family Connection-Communities in Schools of Athens in a split vote, casting doubt on the program’s future.
Commissioners Patrick Davenport, Allison Wright, Dexter Fisher, John Culpepper, Ovita Thornton and Mike Hamby voted against approving $38,062 for a 4% cost-of-living adjustment for employees of the Neighborhood Leaders program. This program employs 19 organizers who help Athens residents access services and resources such as employment opportunities, food assistance and healthcare. They also help residents register to vote and engage in other aspects of civic life.
Erin Thompson Podvin, the executive director of Family Connection-Communities in Schools of Athens, told commissioners that the neighborhood leaders employed by her organization are deeply engaged throughout the Athens community in many positive ways.
“It’s a neighborhood leader at the homeless day center who pre-screens clients for SNAP, it’s a neighborhood leader who checks on their elderly, shut-in residents to ensure they aren’t starved for food or human interaction, it’s a neighborhood leader who collaborates with a site coordinator inside a school to bring diapers because a family hasn’t the money or the transportation to get them,” Podvin said.
Family Connection originally started the program with federal funds provided by the Obama administration, but funding was cut when Republicans regained control of the federal government. Not long after, Family Connection saw an opportunity to reinvigorate the program with local funds after progressives gained power on the ACC Commission in the 2018 local election.
The commission chose to give $800,000 for Neighborhood Leaders in December of 2019, but their decision was not unanimous. For example, both Davenport and Thornton criticized the program as “a hand out,” although Thornton eventually voted in favor of it with the caveat that it would not become a permanent part of the ACC budget.
“[Neighborhood Leaders] was just supposed to be a one-year ride,” Thornton said at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “We, the government, were supposed to hire two grant writers to help sustain the neighborhood leaders. When we didn’t hire the grant writers, maybe we should have shut it down then.”
The ACC government did eventually hire the grant writers requested by Thornton in 2019, but it took much later than anticipated to do so in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even without early support from the grant writers, Family Connection has managed to acquire some additional funding for the program since 2019. They receive about $190,000 a year from the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and about $50,000 a year on average in private donations that go towards Neighborhood Leaders. However, the DFCS grant was given to expand the program, not to cover existing operational costs.
The total budget for Neighborhood Leaders is roughly $1.3 million a year, $1.1 million of which is funded by the local government.
Normally, agencies that receive local government funding submit requests for potential increases during the commission’s yearly budget cycle ending in June. In this case, Family Connection’s request was submitted too late to be included in the budget, which is why commissioners ended up considering it at their meeting on Tuesday.
Fisher started off the commission’s discussion by making a motion to deny the $38,000 cost-of-living request while insisting that he was a “big supporter” of the program.
“It’s supposed to have been a one-time deal,” Fisher said. “Now we’re four or five years in and we continue to fund the program.”
In disagreement, Commissioner Carol Myers asked her colleagues to fund the cost-of-living adjustment at the same amount local government employees received this year, while planning a discussion on the future of the Neighborhood Leaders program at a later date.
“We have been in some ways treating [the neighborhood leaders] as county employees, giving them similar raises and that’s what’s being asked for now,” Myers said. “I think that we need to have a public, open, transparent discussion about the Neighborhood Leaders program to make sure we’re all on the same place with it.”
Fisher shot back, saying “they’re not our employees.”
Supporting Myers’ motion, Commissioners Jesse Houle and Melissa Link spoke up in favor of a wage increase for Family Connection employees working in the Neighborhood Leaders program.
“It’s not like these folks are getting paid a lot, with or without this 4% cost-of-living raise,” Link said. “I have no problem voting to approve this…It’s not a whole lot of money in the big scale of things and they are doing good work.”
Myer’s proposal failed 4-6, with Houle, Link and Commissioner Tiffany Taylor joining Myers to vote in favor.
Immediately after, Fisher’s proposal to deny the funding request passed 6-4 along the same lines.
Fisher declined to plan for a discussion on the future of the Neighborhood Leaders program as requested by Myers, leaving open the possibility that it could be dropped from the budget next year.
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