13.
14.
COMMUNITY SERVICES UPDATE - MARY KEATING
No remarks were offered. Mary Keating, Director of Community Services was not present at the
meeting.
OLD BUSINESS
Chair Schwarze referred to the discussion held at the previous Human Services Committee
regarding the round two infrastructure grant requests totaling $551,000, but only $500,000 was
earmarked for this grant. Finance staff were going to attempt to find additional reductions within
the organizations that submitted qualifying applications.
Chair Schwarze added that after careful vetting by the Finance group, it will be difficult to
reduce the requests from $551,000 to meet the $500,000 threshold for the organizations that did
not receive funding in round one. His request to the committee was to approve of taking the
$51,000 out of the food funds, (leaving us with $550,000), to get the items for those agencies
that have not received any infrastructure funding at all, to get this on the next Finance and
County Board agendas. After that, we will revisit the remaining $550,000.
After discussions with Nick Kottmeyer and Jeff Martynowicz, Chair Schwarze stated there may
be funds available either from unused ARPA funds and/or contingency funds to fund the entire
round two grants at $1.2M. although the funds will be available, requests will still be required to
be approved by the County Board.
Nick Kottmeyer, Chief Administrative Officer, clarified that the $500,000 or $551,000 for the
first group of requests in round two will come out the food insecurity funds already reserved for
this purpose ($1.2M). Moving on to the second part of group two, agencies that received funding
in round one, for total requests of $652,000, Nick stated the Finance team will be going through
all the ARPA requests and recouping any unused money, excluding any funds in the elected
officials’ budgets, which cannot be reclaimed until the end of the budgeted year. If the County
Board agrees, Nick will recommend the money recalled from the County funded departments be
used to fund the second part of round two requests, which he projects to be around $600,000.
The thought process is that Human Services is building the infrastructure for food insecurity for
the next ten to twenty years by the present funding to the food insecurities. If not enough ARPA
money is available, the County will supplement that with contingency funds within the 2024
budget.
Nick stated he has discussed food insecurity with the chair and board members. Food insecurity
is here to stay and will be an issue year after year, coming out of covid. Constant need and a
constant funding issue is the new norm we are facing. Funding will be revisited and be a
recurring process as time goes on.
It was noted that the Finance team was able to get a better vehicle for HCS for less money due to
Valerie Calvente’s procurement process, which will be continued for all agencies’ requests.
After discussion within the committee and questions answered, Chair Schwarze requested a
show of hands in support of approving the $551,000 for the first round of requests in round two.
The show of hands was unanimous.
Nick Kottmeyer stated that MaryCatherine Wells will be giving an ARPA update at the Finance
and/or County Board on July 9, which will give Human Services a clearer vision of what unused
ARPA funds may be available for the round two funding requests.
The discussion handout is attached hereto and made part of the minutes packet.