A couple of points on this, first I may have been the one yelling the loudest about the funding formula but the initiative and my instructions to act on it came from the District 2 Board.
The City created the District Council system in the 70's by recognizing those neighborhoods that were politically active at the time and creating Districts where there were not active identified neighborhood organizations (East Side and North End). The Districts were no where near equal in size or population. District Councils were originally funded on a case by case grant basis and in the early 80's that meant that the best grant writers got the most money. In 1990 the current funding formula was developed that gave 80% of the money evenly to each district and 20% proportionately (making sure to "hold harmless" those districts who had larger grants than the formula would allow). The proposed formula is 75% population, 15% poverty index, 5% non-English speaking, 5% jobs. So, you start with the current funding for the system, take 75% of it and distribute it based on a districts population, next you take 15% of the money and base it on a district population below 100% of poverty (15% is the number of people in St. Paul who fall below that line), then you take 5% of the monies and divide it by the number on non-English speaking adults (city total) and lastly you take 5% and divide it based on the number of jobs in the district. The total is the amount that each district would receive. The additional $116,000 that is needed is to bring the six smallest districts up to $37,000 a year. That is Downtown, West Seventh Street, Summit Hill, St. Anthony Park, Como, and Hamline Midway. Under the above formula these small district don't reach that level of funding and the additional money is needed to make them viable. Though there is general agreement on this being a better formula there is one district that is looking for a significant increase (to complicated to get into) not under the proposed guidelines and finding the additional dollars to make this happen is also in question. We shall see if it passes. The lack of fairness in the system is not spread out but concentrated in Wards 5, 6 and part of 3 (Highland). Wards 2 and 4 lose nothing if this falls apart since all of the highly funded small districts are in those two wards and the impact in Ward 1 and 7 is marginal. Chuck Repke District 2 E. D. _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
