Council debates aid-to-agency recommendations, staff to revise awards ahead of May vote

Iowa City Council members spent the Feb. 4 work session reviewing staff recommendations for the city’s aid-to-agency grants and asked staff to revise scoring and return with updated recommendations before the final May vote.

The conversation centered on the city manager’s recommendation that the city adopt an “approximate fiftyfifty percentage split language, with, neither group, that is the 6 direct agencies, or the rest of the competitive field getting more than 60% in any given, any given funded year,” a staff summary in the meeting packet said. City staff said they adjusted earlier December recommendations to approach that target after HCDC (the Housing and Community Development Commission) could not meet quorum to review awards.

Several councilors urged changes to staff recommendations. “I would . . . put forward that 4 Cs receive the amount that they were funded at last year,” Councilor Alter said, arguing 4 Cs provides culturally specific child care to immigrant communities and that staff scoring did not fully reflect the organization’s impact. Alter said United Way staff had provided guidance to improve 4 Cs’ application and urged council consideration of restoring the nonprofit to its prior-year award.

Other councilors raised concerns about merged organizations and whether the 50/50 guardrail unintentionally penalizes collaboration. “Do we penalize them for collaborating?” one councilor asked about the DVIP and RVAP merger; staff responded that the merger complicated how the split would be applied because combined legacy allocations made hitting the target harder.

Staff told council that initial December recommendations were posted before the council indicated policy preference for the 50/50 split, and HCDC lacked quorum to adjust awards. The packet shows staff revised several recommended amounts on Jan. 29 to better align with the council’s direction, but staff acknowledged the revisions may have gone farther than intended for some merged agencies and said it would revisit those lines.

Councilors pressed staff for more data and midyear performance information for agencies such as the Center for Worker Justice, which, according to the FY24 performance table in the packet, served fewer Iowa City residents against some stated goals. Sam Turnbull, grant specialist, said second-quarter reports are due to staff by mid- to late February and that staff will compile performance tables for council review.

Staff recommended bringing revised scoring back to council via an information packet in February and presenting final allocations for formal vote in May once federal CDBG allocations from Congress are known. “We’ll revise our staff scoring 1 last time, put that in an IP with just a memo explaining that the actual vote will come later in May,” staff said.

Council members noted HCDC’s quorum problems this year and discussed whether staff or council should take a more active role reviewing awards this cycle. Staff offered to return to HCDC if a quorum can be obtained, but said if HCDC remained unable to convene, staff would present final recommendations for council consideration.

Councilors made several advocacy statements on behalf of particular applicants; staff said those expressions would be captured and could inform final allocations but that council would have full discretion at the formal vote in May.

The council did not take a formal vote on funding at the Feb. 4 work session; staff will return with revised recommendations and performance data in the coming weeks ahead of the May vote.