Committee advances multiple retroactive grants and contract amendments, and continues small-business loan item

The Budget & Finance Committee on April 14 advanced several grant and contract items to the Board of Supervisors and continued one item for additional amendments.

Department of Public Health requested a first amendment to a contract with Central City Hospitality House to increase the agreement by roughly $6.3 million (raising the total from $8.8M to $15.1M) and extend the term through Dec. 31, 2022 to continue low-threshold behavioral health services for people experiencing homelessness. BLA staff said the contract is funded about 70% by the General Fund and about 30% by Mental Health Services Act funds; the committee moved the item to the Board with a positive recommendation after asking about performance measures and data-sharing approaches.

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing asked the committee to retroactively accept in-kind strategic and operational housing consultant services valued up to $125,000 from Tipping Point Community to support shelter-in-place (SIP) hotel rehousing operations (Dec. 2020–Dec. 2021). A Tipping Point representative said the consultant was brought in quickly to accelerate referrals into new rehousing resources tied to recently released Prop C funding; the committee advanced the resolution to the Board with a positive recommendation.

The Recreation and Park Department presented two Prop 68 grant actions. The committee approved a retroactive acceptance of an $8,500,000 Statewide Park Program grant for the 900 Innes Boatyard Park project and authorized a 30-year maintenance commitment (contract performance period retroactive to 07/01/2018). Separately, the committee approved $1,622,072 in per-capita Prop 68 funds for the Rossi Pool renovation project (07/01/2018–06/30/2024). Rec & Park said no grant funds have been expended to date; both items were moved to the full Board with positive recommendations.

Finally, OEWD presented a small-business emergency financial relief program to originate loans via California Rebuilding Fund and an interest-rate buy-down through Kiva; amendments updated the total authorization to about $7.3 million (a $4.2M loan allocation and a $3.1M interest buy-down) and the committee agreed to continue the item for one week to allow staff to circulate revised legislation and an updated BLA report. Supervisors asked staff to consider whether unused loan funds could be converted to grants for businesses that already carry significant debt.

Votes: most items were advanced to the Board with positive recommendations by unanimous roll-call votes in committee. The small-business loan proposal was amended and continued to the next committee meeting.