Council approves month-to-month grant consultant contract with Millennium Strategies

Garfield Heights City Council on June 9 voted 7-0 to authorize an agreement with Millennium Strategies LLC to provide grant consulting services to the city, a contract the administration described as an effort to increase outside funding for city projects.

Chief of staff Jeff Saron summarized the purpose: “Millennium Strategy provides grant funding resources. And looking at other communities, we're finding that other communities are receiving more grant funding than we are. So we've spoken with a number of different agencies about bringing in additional grant funding. Ideally, this this will ultimately pay for itself with the grant funding that we're not receiving. By hiring this company to go out and get us additional funds, this will pay for itself.”

Saron told council the contract is month-to-month and that the city can exit if it does not prove cost-effective: “If it ultimately doesn't, it is a month to month contract. So if any point we decide that we're not getting our money's worth, we will... Exit that contract.”

Why it matters: the city is contracting for outside grant-writing capacity to pursue potentially more external funding. The administration framed the contract as revenue-generating rather than a recurring general fund obligation, but specific terms and performance metrics were not provided in the meeting record.

Action and next steps: Ordinance 52-20-25 was considered by title, the three-reading rule suspended, and Rule 24 waived before adoption (roll-call 7-0). The city did not provide contract dollar amounts or defined performance benchmarks at the June 9 meeting.