Sense of unease surrounds slow spending of pandemic aid on violence prevention in Milwaukee

Work enabled by millions of dollars in federal pandemic aid for violence prevention in Milwaukee is underway ― even if just a fraction of the money has actually been spent, city officials say.

The federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, arrived at the city as Milwaukee struggles to reverse three-plus years of historic gun violence that roughly doubled the number of child homicide victims.

It was about two years ago that city leaders directed $4.25 million of the funding Milwaukee received to violence prevention, and Gov. Tony Evers announced that his administration would direct $8.4 million from the state's federal pandemic allotment for the same cause.

Specifically, those funds went to the city’s Office of Community Wellness and Safety, or OCWS — a recent rebranding of what was known as the Office of Violence Prevention.

Reports from the city show just a fraction of that $12.65 million has been spent as deadlines to do so loom in the coming years.

Officials say the delays have been caused by insufficient staffing in OCWS and the city’s Health Department, coupled with changing guidance from the federal agency overseeing the grants and the need to put in place new policies and procedures. Despite the trickle of the disbursed money, though, city officials overseeing the spending have maintained that violence prevention programs have launched in the last two years and the community organizations running those programs will be reimbursed.

The delays come as OCWS faces ongoing scrutiny of its effectiveness and ability to prove the value of its work as homicides and shootings in the city remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic years. The office's mission is to coordinate resources and community-based organizations to address root causes of violence.

Even so, the office's budget and staff are dwarfed in size by the Milwaukee Police Department, with its 2024 budget of $304 million and average sworn strength at 1,645.

The volume of the city’s gun violence, coupled with deadlines in the coming years to actually spend the federal dollars, create an urgency to use the millions of dollars as quickly as possible, Ald. Milele Coggs said at a meeting of the council's Public Safety and Health Committee.

"With the level of violence that continues to exist in the community, I think the police are one angle and the prevention work is another angle," said Coggs, one of the office's staunchest supporters. "And I will be transparent, I have heard concerns from entities and organizations that we partner with about the timeliness of payment,” she said.

Reports show city has spent a fraction of violence prevention dollars

The office plans to spend the federal aid on everything from expanding the footprint of Milwaukee’s team of violence interrupters to more internal changes such as moving OCWS's office and increasing its staffing to better manage larger budgets and more grants.

"'Huge' is the appropriate adjective," Aaron Szopinski, budget and administration manager at the city's Health Department, said in committee of the influx of dollars. "It's a lot of funding."

It took many months before the first violence prevention dollars left city coffers last year. Even by the middle of 2023, just about 10% of the $4.25 million in city aid and 6.5% of the $8.4 million in state aid had been spent, reports show.

The office's director, Ashanti Hamilton, told the city's Public Safety and Health Committee in September that he faced a number of barriers that slowed spending when he became director in mid-2022 following the abrupt firing of his predecessor in the months after the office received the aid.

Hamilton said he needed to reach out to community organizations to "reassess" plans that were already underway. In some cases, the office had to change plans to reflect the desires of community and council members, he told the committee.

He also cited a significant number of vacant positions in the office, difficulties getting contracts in place and the need to update the agreement with the state to reflect how the $8.4 million would be spent.

"There were a number of challenges that we needed to overcome in the office at the time that I came here," Hamilton said.

Reports show that until the most recent quarter of 2023, the only spending from the $8.4 million grant flowed to bolstering the OCWS organization, including funding staff. While those reports noted “significant delays” in the hiring process, the office by early November had filled 13 of 15 positions, Hamilton said.

Hamilton said a lot of work has gone into building an internal infrastructure so the office can collect information to show whether its work is effective. That's in response to increased demands from Common Council members to see the effects of OCWS's work.

The bulk of the $4.25 million is dedicated to funding 414LIFE, a team of violence interrupters that is housed at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Contracts with the Medical College were not in place until February and March this year, according to the city. That meant the city did not pay for the work the team conducted in 2022 until well into 2023.

Today, the city has spent about 11% of the $4.25 million in city aid and, through the end of September, 9% of the $8.4 million in state aid. Hamilton contended additional invoices had been received for the $4.25 million.

Asked about the pace of spending, Evers' spokesperson, Britt Cudaback, said in a statement the governor continues to support the office.

"Gov. Evers continues to believe that Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention — to which he directed over $8 million — is a critical part of his statewide efforts to prevent and reduce crime, and he remains hopeful that the city will invest these critical resources expeditiously in support of this important goal," she wrote.

Working 'on faith': City officials contend violence prevention work is happening

The spending is not indicative of the work being done, officials say.

Szopinski told the committee that the city's process to grant funds to community organizations can take a significant amount of time, and it's common for organizations to start work with the city "on faith."

"In all those cases, the contracts get done, the organizations get paid, we just have to make sure that those contracts are issued in compliance with the fund source we have and in compliance with all the various city policies," he told the committee.

Hamilton said youth violence prevention and community outreach efforts have already begun without being reimbursed by the city.

“It’s not a true reflection of the activity,” he said of the expenditure reports.

When asked about the monetary value of the initiatives that are already underway — but not yet paid for by the office's federal aid — Hamilton estimated it was several million dollars’ worth. He provided three examples.

For one, the city is still in the process of expanding 414Life and adding additional staff. In a statement, the Medical College of Wisconsin acknowledged there were some delays in finalizing the 414Life contracts with the city but it did not affect the operations of the 414Life program.

Another: The city is working with multiple community-based organizations to staff OCWS’s Promise Zones Initiative, which involves about a dozen outreach teams providing resources to communities. They have also been involved in neighborhood efforts to improve safety by identifying problem areas and organizing residents and businesses.

That initiative is budgeted at $2.4 million, according to city records.

Lastly, the office intends to spend $1 million on various youth violence prevention efforts with partnerships through the United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee and other community groups. The Police Athletic League, a youth sports program with police officers acting as coaches, launched earlier this year as part of that effort.

The Health Department was unable to provide reports detailing the work being carried out by all community groups that are supposed to be reimbursed by the city.

But Hamilton did provide a September report on the Promise Keepers that showed workers had spent hundreds of hours working in about a dozen Milwaukee neighborhoods.

Coggs said she saw members of OCWS, 414Life and Promise Zones working to decrease violence over the summer as her district experienced shootings and homicides.

"For me, the work that (OCWS) and its partners do in the community and especially in my district is undeniable," she said.

Violence prevention director hopes move to new office speeds process

Even once a contract is in place it can take time for the city to reimburse organizations for their work.

In general, when the city awards a grant to a community organization, for example, the city often reimburses the organization for work it has already done instead of providing the money in a lump sum upfront.

“We wait for them to complete the work,” Andrea Fowler, the city’s ARPA director, said at a September meeting with the city’s ARPA Task Force. “The fact that the money is not moving out the door as quickly as you would expect, to me, is not alarming.”

In an interview with the Journal Sentinel, Hamilton said managing grants from the federal government — and all the rules and stipulations they come with — is time-consuming but important.

“I will be the first to admit, bureaucratic challenges should not be the hurdle in getting out emergency funding, so we try to be creative in how we continue the activity,” he said.

He said the Health Department does not have the staff to manage grants and execute contracts quickly, especially after a windfall of resources arrived from ARPA.

The Health Department, however, will only house the OCWS until the end of the year, when it moves to the city’s Department of Administration and its more robust grants infrastructure. In announcing the office's changing name, Mayor Cavalier Johnson earlier this year also said the office's focus would broaden.

Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis said the move would "bring additional resources to bear." And that gives Hamilton added confidence that the city will meet its deadlines to spend the ARPA funds.

"I'm not concerned about it," Hamilton said. "That’s one of the reasons why we felt there was a need to (make the move). There needs to be an infrastructure for checks and balances for this amount of resources."

Recently signed contract will allow youth organizations to 'dig deeper and to serve wider'

Some community groups have waited to start spending in earnest against their grant money until a contract is in place.

United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee in recent months reached a $1.1 million contract with the city to provide youth violence prevention intervention services via its eight member organizations, Executive Director Renée Logee said.

While some member organizations incurred a few thousand dollars here and there, the vast majority of spending will take place now that the contract is in place, she said.

The money will allow member organizations to largely expand their existing programs.

"We have great programming and services provided to youth at all of our centers, and this funding has allowed us to dig deeper and to serve wider than before," she said.

With the new dollars, member organization City on a Hill will be able to add two staff positions and provide life skills training to more young people, CEO Art Serna Jr. said. The funding will also expand the group's family mobility program that helps families care for the needs of the young people and increase its economic mobility, he said.

The needs for mental health assistance, food and more have been increasing since the pandemic, and earlier access to the funding would have helped, he said.

"The need has only been getting greater since 2021," Serna said. "And, so, the access to these funds a year ago, absolutely, would have made a difference. And we're fortunate that all the powers that be in the city made it happen and we have the funds now and we're going to do the most we can with them."

Still, he said, it's exciting to close 2023 with the funding necessary to scale up to meet community members' needs.

The funds will also allow Neighborhood House of Milwaukee to bring in experts to talk with young people about college and careers, Director of Development Rebecca Gregory said.

And, she said, the funding will expand programming as kids and families rebuild their lives in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. They were traumatized not only by the health fears that gripped the globe and the financial challenges many families experienced but also by the loss of family and friends, she said.

"Having this influx of funding for this type of programming is important for dealing with that aftermath," Gregory said.

Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com. Elliot Hughes can be reached at elliot.hughes@jrn.com.