Chair Stevens questions community-based center closures and OMB gap funding

I would say we are going to move in ways that honor the current procurement process, but also that we are going to be opportunistic about ways to leverage.

The current slots or the future slots in ways that help to mitigate some of the impact.

Post-award announcement, there are 10-day appeal process with a submission date of April 24th for the census-based providers that may not have been viable to receive awards.

Has there been any changes in this appeal process?

We extended the appeal process, I believe, by two weeks in order to have providers be able to receive a briefing before they made their appeal.

And I know with the community base, it's a little different than it is for the school base.

And one of my biggest issues with the community base was that we were going to be closing programs.

And in a time where we are seeing young people having lack of programs, I'm like, well, why would we be closing any programs?

So can we talk about what that process was?

And I know...

You guys have been really thoughtful about thinking about creative ways of like trying to work with different providers, but like especially with community.

I think in a moment of trying to close any center in this moment sounds crazy to me, especially going into the summer.

So I'm just trying to get a better understanding where we are with that and how do we move forward.

We're in the process of looking at the impact and making strategic decisions about how we move forward because we're in the process of investigating that right now and looking into it deeply.

I don't have a formal strategy to share right now.

Has there been any additional funding for OMB to fill the gaps for these community centers?

I think there were an ongoing conversations that the commissioner just mentioned, recognizing the impact of the most recent awards.

And we are looking into how we can appropriately respond to the concerns of all stakeholders.

And so we're in ongoing conversations with OMB.

Okay, I'll join those ongoing conversations because again, I just want to just say like, you know,

Community-based, everybody knows community-based programs has a special place in my heart.

And that's because they do a different type of work.

And the same students that show up at a school-based program typically does not show up at a community center.

And those are a lot of times are the kids we need to be reaching, right?

Community center staff are the ones that are typically out from the community, out on the ground and in there.

And so for me in this moment, these community-based programs has to be a priority.

And that has been one of the biggest things that I've been pushing for.

And I think like as we're thinking about where we need to save, and I understand that savings, we cannot do it on the back of young people.

And that is one thing that I'm just not okay with.

And I've been saying this, my theme today is like, if we're going to have an affordable city, it needs to be affordable for young people.

And these are the things that we need, especially when we had ACS before you guys, and we have 362 young people in secure detention currently.

And that is abysmal because when I got into office, we were at 150.

And so those numbers have.

tripled at this point and closing community centers just does not sound like that is something we should be doing in this moment.

So I'm going to continue to advocate and push because community-based programs need to be open and we should be expanding that work and not closing any programs.