Syracuse City staff outlines new "center of excellence" to centralize grant work
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Summary
City staff described a plan to centralize Syracuse City's grant-seeking and management in a new "center of excellence," saying it will track awards, support departments with technical assistance and reporting, and could justify additional staff if needed.
Janet, a city staff member leading the grant effort, told council members the city will launch a "center of excellence" to centralize grant searches, submissions and reporting across departments. "Primarily with the center of excellence is formalizing things that we have been doing for years," she said, adding the office will also send automatic reminders for reports and help departments with technical tasks.
The center aims to consolidate previously scattered work into one managed system so Syracuse City can better identify which grant programs it wins and where it needs stronger narratives, Janet said. "We have put together 1 golden list of grants over the last several months," she said, describing recent cleanup of stale records so the city's books accurately reflect active and closed grants.
Council members welcomed the proposal’s potential to increase revenue and efficiency. One council member said the city has "so few ways to generate revenue" and expressed openness to steps that would bring additional dollars; another urged investment in staff, saying "you should have more than 5 people working on grants." Janet said the current grants team numbers about five staffers and that many police grants are equipment-focused and therefore easier to manage.
When asked whether the city had actually received the funds for old grants, a council member asked, "But did we get the money?" Janet replied that some grants had remained on the books as closed items and that staff had cleaned those entries without any loss of funds.
Janet described how the center will handle compliance: "We will be working with the departments saying to them quarterly, here's here's the questions you need to answer. This is what we need to give to the funder," she said, adding the center would make sure departments know what funders require and would assist with report preparation when departments lack grant specialists.
On staffing, Janet said the city remains a relatively small team after COVID-era reductions but plans to track capacity and, if necessary, present data to request additional positions next year. Asked for a ballpark of how many grant dollars flowed through a specific department, Janet said she did not have the figure on hand and promised to "go check it, and I will email you and let you know." She also said when the center is fully operating next year she expects to report clear metrics on applications and awards.
The meeting ended without formal votes on the center. A motion to adjourn was moved and seconded and the chair closed the session with a reminder of the next meeting time.
