Henschel Fund commission approves 2027 application changes, adds "physical and mental well-being" to wraparound services

The Ann Land and Bertha Henschel Memorial Fund Commission on April 29 approved a package of edits to the 2027 grant application and schedule designed to work with the city’s new Grant Management System (GMS) and to clarify how awards and reporting will be handled.

The commission voted to add “physical and mental well-being” to the description of wraparound services used to guide awards, require that agencies be able to submit missing documentation by close of business on Oct. 9, 2026, replace outdated COVID-era wording with office-hours information, add an optional applicant website field and an alternate contact name and email, and set the staff notification date for applicants at Dec. 11, 2026. Chair Ellis moved the consolidated motion and Vice Chair Smith seconded; the roll call recorded affirmative votes from the commissioners present and the motion passed.

Why it matters: staff said the city is migrating grant work into a single, centralized platform to publish opportunities, accept applications and manage scoring and reporting, and the edits were presented as practical changes needed for that system and for clearer grantee communication. Grants staff told the commission that GMS will standardize the application experience, allow applicants to save drafts, support blind review for panelists and centralize scoring and reporting across departments.

During the presentation, a grants staff member described GMS: “The grant management system or GMS for short, is the City of Sacramento's centralized end-to-end platform for creating, administering, applying to, reviewing, and managing city grant programs,” and said commissioners will be registered as panelists and receive training and an invitation to score applications online.

Commissioners asked how the system will display questions and whether they could add notes as they score. Staff said commissioners will see a scoring interface and may save drafts; the numeric scores feed into automated rankings, and staff offered to produce printed extracts of notes or to publish commissioners’ notes in advance as part of the staff report if the commission wants them public.

The city attorney, Harvey Gail, reminded commissioners of open-meeting rules when the group asked about discussing scoring outside a public meeting: “We should not be having communications of this body outside of body meetings,” Gail said, urging commissioners to avoid “hub and spoke” communications and to keep substantive deliberations in publicly noticed meetings.

Some commissioners pressed for more clarity about the scoring matrix and how award amounts would be allocated. Staff said the draft funding pool and average award figures (the packet showed last year’s $190,000 pool and an average award of $8,253) will be updated after the treasury presents final numbers at the August meeting; staff also said awards will be disbursed only after a fully executed contract and that payments are anticipated to be available on or after Jan. 1, 2027.

On site visits and grantee reporting, commissioners recommended sending standard site-visit questions to grantees in advance and adding a routine questionnaire item asking applicants to provide feedback about the application, contracting, disbursement and communication process; the commission approved that question by motion.

The commission also voted to extend the meeting past its two-hour limit to complete the agenda.

What the vote did: The motion to adopt the 2027 application and process updates (including the wraparound-language change and the administrative edits listed above) was made by Chair Ellis and seconded by Vice Chair Smith; the clerk recorded affirmative votes from present commissioners and the motion passed. (Recorded votes: Commissioners Coletta — yes; Contreras — yes; Malik — yes; Brown — yes; Stevens — yes; Ubak — yes; Seymour — yes; Vice Chair Smith — yes; Chair Ellis — yes; Commissioners Ruehl, Beckman and others were noted absent in the roll call.)

Next steps: staff will update the draft application and the GMS setup based on the commission’s direction, return a final packet in August with confirmed funding numbers from the treasury and provide panelist training and fillable scoring tools ahead of the November scoring meeting. The application is scheduled to open Aug. 31, 2026, with a Sept. 30 deadline for full submissions.

The commission adjourned after completing the agenda.