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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWeekly Newsletter Date: May 6, 2011 To: Mayor & City Council From: Mark A. Rohloff, City Manager WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Subject: CDBG PROGRAM FACES POTENTIAL CUTS 1.: Council Members may have heard reports that the Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program is facing potential immediate cuts in the 2011 fiscal year, as well as more serious cuts in the 2012 budget. The CDBG Program has been in place since 1974, and is used to provide funds at the local level to create jobs, grow local economies, generate labor income, and increase state and local tax revenue by providing funding with flexibility for individual communities to address unique local needs. The City of Oshkosh currently receives approximately $900,000 annually for the CDBG Program. By law, the program must provide some benefit to residents of Low to Moderate Income (LMI). The single largest program offered by the city with their CDBG dollars is the Housing Rehabilitation Program. Other funds are used for targeted central city redevelopment, housing rehabilitation, rental rehabilitation, neighborhood initiatives (NeighborWorks), and general public services (i.e., grants to local agencies). At the same time, a portion of our CDBG dollars are used for administration and planning, as provided for by law. Because of our commitment to fulfill the goals of the CDBG Program, our Planning staff receives a sizeable portion of their funding through CDBG funds. It appears as though there may be as much as a 16.5% reduction in 2011 CDBG dollars, which translates to approximately $150,000. Fund reductions such as this may be able to be absorbed in any one fiscal year. However, long term program reductions would have serious consequences as the city tries to fulfill its community development and planning needs. I have asked our Community Development staff to work with the Finance Department to identify potential funding sources that will enable us to continue many other programs currently funded through our CDBG Program in the event that more serious reductions occur in the 2012 budget. During our prior discussions of potential budget hits from the state for the 2012 budget, we have not included the CDBG Program in these discussions, although we have been aware of its potential for some time. This again demonstrates that the 2012 budget will be particularly hard for us to balance. Staff is aware of this potential, and we are working to identify potential funding sources for all programs whose subsistence has been based on grant dollars. If you have any questions regarding potential cuts to this program, please contact Community Development Director Allen Davis. Weekly Newsletter May 6, 2011 Page 2 UW OSHKOSH DEDICATES BIODIGESTER 2.: Please find enclosed an invitation to UW- th Oshkosh's dedication of their new biodigester on Wednesday, May 18. As you can see, the dedication takes place at 9:00 a.m. The festivities will continue all day, including a panel discussion at 2:00 p.m. on sustainability in municipalities in which I will be participating. If any of you are interested in attending any of these events, please let Jackie know. 2011 BUDGET SURVEY 3.: Under separate cover, I am providing the Council with a copy of the 2011 Citizen Budget Survey that was completed by the Public Policy Analysis Class at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. This is the third year in which Professor Karl Nollenberger's class has conducted this survey. Although the overall number of responses to the survey was down from previous years, the survey still has a 93.3% validity, compared with 94% for previous years. It should be noted that the on-line responses were four times greater than in previous years, so the overall number of responses is up, even though the survey results analyzed by the class only represent the 248 written responses that were received. There is so much to absorb in this study that I cannot do justice to it in this writing, but I will spend some time at Tuesday's Council Meeting going over some basic results from the study, as well as comments made by students in their analysis of the survey. Overall, some of the trends are showing improvement when analyzed from one year to the next. The continuing issues of improvement remain streets and storm water. If you have any questions that you would like me to look into in advance of Tuesday's Council Meeting, please do not hesitate to contact me. Meanwhile, Finance Director Peggy Steeno has also shared this information with the Long Range Finance Committee. PUBLIC MUSEUM FEATURED ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL 4.: The Oshkosh Public Museum's very own Scott Cross, the Museum's Curator, was featured on a program on the History Channel on Wednesday evening. The program, entitled, "Custer's Last Man: I Survived Little Big Horn", discusses the possibility that there was one survivor to Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn. The Oshkosh Public Museum was brought into this discussion because the alleged survivor of the battle married a former Oshkosh resident at one time. Upon this person's death, his widow returned to Oshkosh, and shared her husband's story with the Oshkosh Northwestern, and later donated documentation to the Oshkosh Public Museum, supporting her husband's claim that he was at Little Big Horn. There are at least two books written on this subject, and it appears as though the documents contained in the Museum have been a large source of documentation to add to this debate. I'm not sure when this program will be aired on the History Channel in the future, but I had an opportunity to watch it on Wednesday, and Mr. Cross represented the Oshkosh Museum and its collection very well. Congratulations to Scott and all of the employees at the Museum for putting the Museum's collection on display and showing its relevance to American history. DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS & UPDATES 5.: Other items I'm enclosing with today's Newsletter include the latest report on the hotel/motel room tax. Insofar as minutes are concerned, th I'm enclosing the following: The minutes of the April 11 Advisory Park Board meeting; the stth minutes of the March 31 Library Board meeting; the minutes of the April 6 Long Range th Finance Committee meeting; the minutes of the April 13 Landmarks Commission meeting; and th the minutes of the December 8 Board of Appeals meeting. Weekly Newsletter May 6, 2011 Page 3 th UPCOMING MEETINGS 6.: Meetings I have scheduled for the week of May 9 include the following: On Monday, at 7:30 a.m., I will be attending a meeting of the Chamber Governmental Affairs Committee. At 9:00 a.m., Mayor Tower and I will meet to discuss the upcoming City Council Meeting Agenda. Mayor Tower and I plan to meet on a regular basis prior to Council Meetings. On Monday at 1:30 p.m., the Public Works Department and I will be meeting with the city's contractor for sidewalk snow removal. On Wednesday, at 9:00 a.m., I will be meeting in Madison with several City Managers throughout the state and representatives of the State Department of Commerce. The City Managers were invited to discuss the DOC's plans for the future, particularly the newly created, quasi-public agency that will assume many of the DOC's th current responsibilities. On Thursday, May 12, at 7:30 a.m., I will be attending the Convention & Visitors Bureau annual tourism breakfast. On Friday, at 9:00 a.m., I will be attending the Winnebago County Interagency meeting. If you have any questions about my attendance at any of these meetings, please do not hesitate to contact me. MAR/jdc