Last November, Cincinnati City Council unanimously voted to double the size of the city’s human services fund from $1.5 million to $3 million during the next budget cycle.
But when City Manager Harry Black released his proposed Fiscal Year 2016-2017 budget earlier this month, that suggestion was disregarded. Now councilmembers are questioning how much power they have in the budget process.
Council’s five Democrats responded June 8 with their own budget proposal, which fully funds human services and a number of other programs they deem priorities. But without votes from other councilmembers, that proposal wouldn’t withstand a potential mayoral veto.
Black’s budget, which tracks closely with Mayor John Cranley’s priorities, includes provisions that would greatly improve Cincinnati’s roads, as well as increase the number of police on city streets. And on first glance, the overall amount dedicated to human services is higher than council directed at $3.7 million.
But in the administration’s proposed budget, that category now includes programs that are not usually part of human services, and when these are accounted for, traditional human service organizations funded by the city will get much less than council asked for. Some council members are calling that a bait-and-switch move. They’re also questioning the inclusion of programs close to Cranley and asking whether council has much of a say in the budget at all.
Council’s November motion sought to dedicate more funds to the city’s anti-poverty efforts, focusing on homelessness and unemployment, during a time when Cincinnati ranks second in the country for child poverty and one in three Cincinnatians lives below the poverty line.
“I think it’s a sad state when that happens,” said Councilwoman Yvette Simpson of the lack of human services funding at a public hearing on the budget June 5. “The messaging outside Cincinnati is that the city is booming. But what does that mean if nobody feels it?”
Beyond council, Black’s budget move has raised questions from community members and many agencies that receive funding from the city. The issue became a focal point of a series of five public hearings on the budget held earlier this month, often dominating those discussions.
Theresa Singleton, who works for the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati, thanked council for its November resolution and urged its members to push hard to keep human services funding at the final budget town hall meeting June 4. Representatives from Santa Maria Community Services, Lighthouse Youth Services, the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless and others were also present.
“As you go through your week talking about the budget, negotiating, I want you to think about the people we serve,” Singleton said. “Our agencies work so hard to share resources and help people who truly need help — a mom who has been beaten with a baseball bat. A homeless teenager. A mom who doesn’t have grocery money. All of us fill that safety net and we really want to be able to continue to do that.”
The uncertainty around human services funding isn’t new. The last time the city met its stated goal of providing 1.5 percent of the operating budget was 2004. During the next decade, the city cut funding for human services by 66 percent.
At the time, council’s vote to boost funding seemed like a definite move toward that goal. The move would have brought funding up from .42 percent of the city’s $358 million 2015 budget to about .8 percent of the city’s proposed $375 million operating budget for 2016.
Now, however, the pool of money available to the organizations council hoped to boost looks smaller.
Generally, much of the human services fund goes to social service agencies through United Way. This year, those agencies will receive $1.6 million in the city budget. Meanwhile, The Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, or CIRV, receives $759,555 from human services funding under Black’s proposed budget. Last year, CIRV received $598,910 in the budget, but it was taken from the budget for the city manager’s office.
Meanwhile, other programs funded by Black’s budget also hew closely to Cranley’s priorities.
Black’s budget includes $750,000 for Center for Closing the Health Gap, a $200,000 increase. The organization’s founder, former Democratic Mayor Dwight Tillery, is a political ally to Mayor Cranley. Under former Mayor Mark Mallory, the nonprofit only received $200,000 in the 2014 budget. The organization also received a $350,000 funding increase in last year’s budget.
Funding for these two organizations, which were not requested in council’s motion, represents nearly $1.6 million.
Meanwhile, the administration budget cuts funding to Cradle Cincinnati, an organization that has worked to fight Cincinnati’s infant mortality problem. That move has infuriated some council members, including Wendell Young, who has taken an active role in fighting the city’s infant death rate. The city is one of the worst in the country for infant deaths.
Council motions to direct the city manager about budget priorities are common and in the past have caused few controversies.
Councilman Chris Seelbach called Black’s move to ignore council’s request “strange” and suggested it’s a symptom of the city manager’s lack of accountability to council. Under the city’s charter, the city manager is supposed to be equally accountable to the mayor and council. However, in practice, that hasn’t always been the case, especially recently.
A balance of power study by the Charter Review Committee released in March suggested that Cincinnati’s city manager is, in fact, almost entirely beholden to the mayor, because the mayor can hire and fire that position. In addition, the mayor’s ability to suggest edits to the city manager’s budget before it is presented to council gives the mayor unusual power over the budget process.
That has caused frustration for some council members this budget session as Black, who was appointed by Cranley and approved by council last year, has disregarded motions council made suggesting budget priorities. In addition to the human services funding suggestion, Black also ignored a March request from the majority of council for $9 million to renovate Mount Auburn’s Inwood Park and streetscapes surrounding it.
“This is an incredibly important project for the future of Mount Auburn,” Seelbach said during a June 8 budget and finance committee meeting. “I just want to express again, as I have over the past two weeks, my frustration with the administration for ignoring so many of our motions.”
Not everyone is so frustrated with the process.
“I think — in fact I know — we will find a way to appropriately fund human services,” said Councilman Kevin Flynn, a member of the Charter Party. “I think the administration has listened to council on many, many things. They’ve been trying to balance many, many things.”
Black has said council needs to take budgetary suggestions more seriously, passing ordinances — which have the force of law, unlike motions — for items it would like prioritized.
In the meantime, council’s five Democrats have released an alternate budget proposal that restores human services funding to levels recommended in November, as well as restoring funding to Cradle Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Health Department, bike programs and other priorities.
Mayor John Cranley is currently reviewing his fellow Democrats’ plan. The mayor could veto that budget if it doesn’t get more votes beyond the five Democrats on council. Council looks likely to vote on a plan June 17. Once passed, the budget will go into effect July 1. ©
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.
