Quick Take
Santa Cruz County supervisors were divided amid public criticism on Tuesday over the selection process behind an allocation of $4.3 million in tax revenue to support local nonprofits. The county received more than 100 proposals totaling $15 million and turned to a 60-member anonymous panel to judge the proposals. Critics called for a more transparent process.
A decision over how to spend an annual $4.3 million to stabilize nonprofits key to the local social safety net divided Santa Cruz County supervisors this week and prompted calls for more transparency in the process for choosing which organizations to fund. The county received 100 proposals costing, in total, more than $15 million.
In a 3-2 vote on Tuesday, Supervisors Bruce McPherson, Zach Friend and Felipe Hernandez backed a $3.3 million funding package recommended by an anonymous, 60-person panel that vetted and graded the 100 nonprofit proposals. The three-supervisor majority also approved a nonprofit subsidy plan for an additional $1 million per year, which was set aside for the supervisors to pick organizations not included in the panel’s recommendation. The annual spending package is a three-year commitment.
The CORE (Collection of Results and Evidence-based) Investments program is a dual initiative led by the county, with some help from the City of Santa Cruz, to put public money into local nonprofit coffers. However, the program, now in its third three-year cycle, has garnered criticism over divisiveness and a lack of transparency.
In the weeks leading up to the decision, officials and nonprofit leaders criticized what District 3 Supervisor Justin Cummings called “one of the least transparent processes I’ve had to work in.” Cummings, who voted against the spending plan on Tuesday, complained that the process forced supervisors to make decisions in the dark. Despite “results” and “evidence” being part of the CORE Investments acronym, he said that supervisors are given no results or evidence about how prior investments worked, or to what degree the proposed programs would benefit the community. The 60-person panel, anonymous to even the board of supervisors, does not offer their scores, or their formula for scoring.
McPherson, Friend and Hernandez voted to fund the panel’s 28 recommendations without changes. They include $500,000 for a college savings account program from Semillitas, $150,000 for a migrant worker education center in South County from the Community Action Board, and $248,000 for Community Bridges’ family resource center. The three supervisors then approved a $1 million package crafted by McPherson, with few changes, to fund programs left out of the panel’s recommendations, including Meals on Wheels, Grey Bears, Dientes Community Dental and Second Harvest Food Bank.
Cummings and Supervisor Manu Koenig had gone into the meeting hoping to get three votes to delay the process — against county staff’s urging to not delay — until the supervisors could get more information on the panel’s scoring philosophy and how the proposed programs would impact the community. Cummings told Lookout he thought Hernandez was interested in postponing the vote and was “really surprised” when he voted for the more urgent path set out by Friend and McPherson.
Hernandez said upstream pressure swayed his decision. Speaking from the California State Association of Counties conference in Pasadena, where local county officials discussed “a lot of doom and gloom,” Hernandez said he is concerned about what impact the Trump administration will have on county government, whose services depend heavily on federal subsidy.
“I don’t want this to be on our plate next year when we’re dealing with all this other stress, anxiety and pressure over deportations, health insurance costs, lost county revenue,” Hernandez said. “We need to be ready to address the upcoming issues we’re going to have. That was one of my motivators. We can’t be dealing with these other budgetary items.”
According to some critics of the process, the package approved by Hernandez, Friend and McPherson left one glaring hole: child care. The Toddler Care Center asked for $100,000 for its child care program and the Walnut Avenue Family & Women’s Center sought $128,000. The county turned down both programs.
Nora Caruso, co-executive director of the Toddler Care Center, which has been operating for five decades, said that Hernandez, Friend and McPherson “showed a blatant disregard for their constituents.” The Toddler Care Center’s board of directors will gather for a meeting on Thursday, Caruso said, and will discuss how to stay afloat without the county subsidy, and which services it might need to cut. The organization did receive $36,000 from the City of Santa Cruz this year, but Caruso said it wouldn’t be enough.
She said the county needs to earmark more of its budget to help nonprofits, and change the process by which the money is divided.
“Nonprofits need a bigger slice of the pie,” Caruso said. “Asking us to squabble for crumbs, it really makes it feel like we’re in the Hunger Games or something.”
Cummings said he wants Tuesday’s meeting to be the last time supervisors are deciding CORE Investment funding without more transparency. He said he plans to propose forming a subcommittee to overhaul the program next year.
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