What were the qualifications for being on the review panels? How many of the panelists have been on the receiving end of the grant process? More bureacracy and paperwork is a wasteful use of time and money. Non-profits need to spend LESS time performing for the judges and more time with the people they serve. The social services and health services grants that were awarded look like excellent choices to me. Most of these programs have an open door policy and welcome volunteers. Go talk to them instead of demanding more forms.

Knoxville Voice's Lisa Slade also covered this story, including Shepherd's concerns, in our April 3 issue:
(link...)

Thanks for the link. Good report.

Has anybody heard yet why the Free Clinic didn't get their funding?

R.Neal you just answered your own question. There was no "why" in this process. Just scores based on opinion, interests (some conflicts of),insufficient information and a brief presentation. There was no logical funding plan to meet the needs of our community.

I know that the employee salaries and list of board members for non-profits is already available in public records. I have also physically seen them attached to grant applications for two of the agencies listed. I have spent entire weeks not doing any of the work that is an agency's mission because of grant writing and application paperwork. It is not relevant to this conversation, but I have spent untold numbers of hours "networking" to keep the board members and contributors happy. The entire process is contrary to the goals of the agency. When it comes right down to it, even federal grants are ultimately given based on someone's mood and the attractiveness of the application. Sometimes worthy groups get left out and redundant agencies get money.

If groups feel that they can find a better way than taking taxpayer money to fund themselves, then they have my permission to look elsewhere.

The real problem is that the new process revised the rules so that there is a point structure. OK so far. But applicants with high enough scores could get--and did get--all of what they were recommended to receive. That was 17 out of the 29 applicant organizations*.

Lower performing applicants (per the questionable review process), however, got nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

This group of 12 organizations that were cut off at the knees includes many that heavily rely on this grant year after year, such as Ijams, James White Fort, the East Tennessee Historical Society, and WDVX radio.

These are your tax dollars. Do you care about the groups that were shut out? Do you think organizations like WDVX, which got zero-point-zero percent of the 60% of the $50,000 that they were recommended to receive, contribute as much to our region, even in some proportional sense, as organizations like the Knoxville Zoo, which received 79% of the $130,000 (and 100% of the recommended funding) they requested?

Was this feast-or-famine process fair? What will the starved groups do without the funding they depend on to survive? I know they are scrambling right now to review their options and figure out what adjustments they may need to make.

*UPDATE CLARIFICATION: I was referring only to the Tourism and Cultural Services category. But the other categories were handled the very same way: Funding was not weighted. It was ladled to the top groups until it ran out early on, stiffing the rest.

I served as a panelist on the Social Services panel. While I understand Ms. Shepherd's concern regarding the information she states was not included in the packets, I also understood clearly that any additional documents were available to me. Personally, I am glad we were not given copies of all the documentation. It would have cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars in copy services, paper and staff resources. Each panelist would have needed their own grocery cart to transport the amount of documents Ms. Shepherd is suggesting. I am not exaggerating this point. Commissioner Drevik, it was more than "a few forms."

As a "volunteer" on the Social Services panel, I took my responsibilities very seriously. I chose to participate in this process. No one forced me to volunteer. If I was to make informed decisions about funding the grant applications we were presented, then it was my responsibility to access the information I needed to make these decisions. I too am a very busy person, however I made time to research the internet for public information related to these applicants. I also made time to visit the Community Development Offices on two occasions to review any additional documents necessary. The grants were organized in alphabetic order for each panel. The Social Services Panel had the most grant requests, which could have easily taken up one drawer of a large office filing cabinet.

To clarify a statement by Ms. Shepherd, it was very clear to me and the members of the Social Services Panel that assessing a score of 40 to the application or presentation/Q&A process did not mean that the organization could be granted 40% of their requested funding. It simply was a score related to ranking. Ms. Shepherd's assessment makes no sense; nor does Fact Checker's statements about the fact that some applicants were awarded "zip - zero". You do understand that there was limited funding? It is unfortunate that all the requests could not be funded but also understand that the budget was cut in half of what had been awarded in 2006 and 2007. That made it even harder for more applicants to get funding. Your process assumes that every grant request would get some level of funding. I don't think that it would have been wise to fund all the grant requests if that meant funding all of them below 25% of their requested funding. We had one request of over $200,000. That was more than 40% of our proposed budget.

Another point of clarification... It is true that the applicants were provided an opportunity to give a 3-5 minute presentation to the panelists. In addition, Ms. Shepherd neglected to say, the panelists had the opportunity to ask questions of the presenters to garner further information to make an informed decision about the grant request. Our panel was very inquisitive and informative discussions ensued during this question and answer period. If she did not take the opportunity to ask questions to better inform herself about the organization, program/service needing funding, and populations served then that is her fault and not a flaw in the process.

Now for the final thorn in my side...Mr. FactChecker and any County Commissioners who want to flame the fire under the pot Ms. Shepherd is simmering...All of the Citizen Review Panel meetings were open, "Sunshine Law" meetings. I don't recall any of you being at the meetings in order to have first-hand knowledge of the process.

Thank you Cathy Caughan for your comments. I agree. I hope that rather than jumping on Ms. Shepherd's bandwagon and complaining about a much improved process which had a 50% budget cut, more people will be encourage to volunteer at these local organizations/agencies and take responsibility for the world around them.

I could argue other points but it seems to me that "you can't please all the people all of the time." However, in my experience as a panelist, Mr. Hoglund and the staff of the Community Development Office provided a much improved process and it restored my faith in Community Grants funding allocations. Was it a perfect process? No, and it was explained at the first meeting and subsequent meetings that this was a pilot project. This year's Citizen Review Panel was a learning opportunity for everyone and will help to develop a better process for next year. Thanks to everyone who volunteered! Chip Barry

...nor does Fact Checker's statements about the fact that some applicants were awarded "zip - zero". You do understand that there was limited funding?

Yes, of course. Then why did applicants above a certain score receive full--not limited--amount of their recommended allotments, while those below received nothing? Given a cut budget, wouldn't the fair thing to do have been to devise a simple weighting formula to account for the decrease in funds? It would not be that difficult to do. Why wasn't this obvious to the panel?

I'm not arguing the process was not followed. I'm saying it was unfair and grossly so. It was all or nothing funding and that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Pilot project? "You can't please all the people all of the time"? These are pitiful excuses for punitive treatment of worthy non-profit groups valued just as much as the "have" groups by the citizens of this county.

In short, IMO, funding for not-for-profit organizations that can provide needed community services more effectively than the city/county should be included in the operating budget as a contracting organization and should not be subject to the grant process.

Grants should target new organizations and existing organizations with a plan to expand current services, to purchase needed equipment, to expand existing facilities, etc. Grants should be made on an annual basis and should not be considered a source of continuing operating funds. In the case of new organizations or organization expanding existing programs, grants should be renewable for a fixed period of years subject to an annual review.

I don't think you are reading the grants data properly. Compare the "Amount Requested" column vs. the "Recommended Funding Column". The funded amount was based on the average recommended percentage of the panel in combination with the scores on the application and presentation processes. It was not all or nothing. You must be reading the last two columns without considering the "Amount Requested" column.

Once again, I agree that there are organizations worthy of being funded that unfortunatly did not qualify for funding this year. Funding was not an arbitrary decision though. Mr. Hoglund ensured that the process of funding was based on the panelists scores which included three sets of data: the application, the interview, and the recommended funding percentage.

With this clarified, what punitive treatment are you referring to?

It was not all or nothing. You must be reading the last two columns without considering the "Amount Requested" column.

What do the blank spaces in the blue column mean? They are really zeroes, right? Or are you saying that every applicant in the Social Funding category, for example, that received overall scores less than 66.91 points received something? The blank cells should all contain zeroes to be accurate. Unless there's more money coming down the pike any moment, or something. Am I still wrong?

If agencies that got less than 66.91 points were denied only because the money ran out, why weren't the funded amounts to all agencies scaled (weighted) accordingly to share the pain of the reduced budget?

How is it fair that the Knox Urban League, for example, got 47.5% of $42,000 from a score of 68.38, while Helen Ross McNabb got 0% of $41,000 from a score of 66.59? If there are missing numbers (funds) where the blanks are, please clarify.

Please be careful in using terms like "deadfile". There was no deadfile. That is your terminology not the County's, the Community Development Department's, or the other panelist's. You make it sound as though the documents were in a storage unit in an undisclosed location. No one "failed to copy" the documents you felt the panelists should have in their packets. It was a conscious decision to conserve resources. None of these documents was ever "withheld". They were always available for any panelist or County resident to review. That was common knowledge to each panelist from the beginning of the application review process. This was stated on the record on more than one occasion. Relating these grant application documents to missing, misfiled, or fabricated receipts of the P-Card Audit is ludicrous.

If your proposal for the panelists to review these documents as a group was "nixed" on two different occasions, especially by the other panelist in a public forum, then your motion appropriately failed in a public process by majority rule. Again, it was your responsibility to review the documents in question if you felt this was important. Keep in mind there are also logistical issues and taxpayer expenses involved in a Sunshine Law meeting that you are recommending take place in the Community Development offices. In addition, it would have taken several hours for a full panel to review these documents in an open meeting and discuss each piece of paper you are referring to. Having each individual panelist review the documents by themselves does not require adherence to the Sunshine Law. Remember these panels were also taking place when the Sunshine Law issues were at the forefront of everyone's mind. Any infraction would have been jumped upon by the media or citizens.

Speaking of the Sunshine Law...for those wondering...the panelists were instructed that once the final scores were agreed to by the panels and the panels were dismissed, the Sunshine Law no longer applied to future discussion between panelists of the process, applications, etc. Panelists are free to discuss the process with each other now. That said, the Sunshine Law was in place when I recall a panelist suggested visiting/calling respective agencies to "ask additional questions, view documents, or observe operations." Confidentiality issues would certainly exist for some agencies. As I recall, the decision preventing us for visiting/phoning applicants was cautiously made with regards to the Sunshine Law.

These fact-finding missions could have been construed as a violation of the Sunshine Law. A visit may have required public advertisement to allow the general public to be present. A visit may have also required an audio and/or visual recording if you wanted to utilize your findings in the public process of the Panel meeting. Bottom line, the Community Development staff with advise from the County Law Director's office stated that a visit or phone call was not advised due to potential Sunshine Law violations. God knows we don't need another lawsuit. Then again, some Commissioners seem to be pushing us into one.

I hope that you have recommended process improvements to the Community Development Office so that they can take your recommendations into consideration. It is one thing to make complaints or address concerns. Offering logical solutions based on fact is more beneficial in the long run for everyone. The Community Development Office requested feedback on the process at the last meeting of the Social Services panel. As a fellow panelist, I agree there are improvements to be made. I am just thankful to have the opportunity as a citizen to have a small say in how our County money is spent. Keep in mind, these recommendations are just that. The County Commission can completely ignore our efforts and allocate the community grants budget in any manner they choose.

(By the way, you are always invited to attend any County Commission meeting or the committee meetings. They are all public meetings under the Sunshine Law. You don't need to be "asked" to attend by the Community Development Office.)

Aside from the "whoops, everybody else will have to go away hungry" aspect, here's another example that's goofy:

Disability Resource Center got 48% of $20,000 from a score of 68.33, while University Health System received a lower score of 67.23, yet got 57% out of a higher requested amount of $25,000. Why?

(And good thing UHS didn't slip one more point, else it would have gotten nothing. A little precarious, no?)

The blanks in the last column represnet zeros at this point. HOwever that may change if a particular agency declines teh grant funding because for instance they are unable to operate a program with the level of funding offered and are unable to secure additional funds from other resoruces to operate.

Take for instance the Social Services Panel I think you were referring to. The money ran out with the University of Tennessee Learn to Earn Program. Note that the recommended funding percentage would have offered them $83,333. Only 64,144 was left in the budget so that is all they were offered. If they decline the funding the remaining 64,144 would then be allocated down the line based on the recommended funding percentage until the money was spent.

Keep in mind that the scores that ranked the grants and the recommended funding percentage are individual peices of data. They were determined seperately and at different times through the grant review process. Two agencies with identically ranked scores could end up with different recommended funding percentatges based on how the grant application was completed by the agency and was reviewed by the panelist.

Thanks for conceding my original point. There was a failure of planning for what money was actually there, as opposed to the blue sky of some other year's budget. How is this at all fair and not punitive to groups that scored below a resulting (and arbitrary) Threshold of Worthiness?

The light green column should have been reflected in the blue column. Period. The pain from a budget cut should have been shared by all the agencies proportionally. However, that didn't happen. All of that pain is being borne only by agencies below the threshold. None of it above.

By not managing the money so that the actual budget was shared by all groups per the light green column, whatever the number therein, the process failed a LOT of organizations that were zeroed out.

Here's an easy solution that has some fairness. You just take the available funds, e.g., $475k (blue total), and divide by expected amt, e.g., $658k (olive total). Then you multiply the result, 72.2% here, to each value in the olive column to get actual values in the blue column.

This is not rocket science.

I acknowledge that, Rachel. I'm not saying the point system, per se, is fair or unfair. (And perhaps so for the odd correlation of points to recommended award amounts vis a vis requested amounts. See my second example comparison above.)

Though I "heard" that the presentation "interview" was kind of a song and dance. The factor of charm to the resulting score did not sound fair. Again, just the way I heard it.

Unfortunately your continued attacks of the recent process still do not provide any logical, cost-effective solutions. You continue to bash the process and kill the messengers. If you wanted to improve the process, respond to the Community Development Offices request for feedback so that they can put together recommended policies for next year. Taking your complaints to the Commission is comtinuing to wag the dog! At this point I have little faith in Commission's ability to "clean up" any mess. If they try, it will only get worse because a majority of them are not able to leave the political strings out of the grant allocation pot of money; just like Ms. Finch and other County executives who made these decisions in the past.

As for your comment that as panelist, "we failed"...DO NOT include ME in your so-called failure. I am offended by your all-inclusive statement. I feel confident that other panel members would be offended also. I am proud of my participation, proud of the work the Social Services panel performed, proud of the way the Community Development Office coordinated what was a cumbersome and tenuous process. In talking with other panel members after our final meeting, everyone I spoke with seemed to be agreeable that the process was a postitive experience and panelist felt good about the resulting data. Do we have some suggestions for improvement. Certainly. I have been thoughtfully putting together my suggestions for next year and respectfully plan to send them to the Community Development Office. In the end, I would proudly serve on a citizen review panel again next year. I want to be part of the solution.

Well, back briefly and I must clarify that last post of mine, which makes no sense...

What I mean is, the column reflecting "Average Funding Percentage" is the one that is completely arbitrary, varies in some cases from application or interview scores by 20% or more, and is unsupported by any worksheet/scoresheet.

Really, the column reflecting "Average Interview Score" is also arbitrary, since panelists lacked any worksheet/scoresheet/thought process with which to evaluate interviews.

If panelists had instead relied on the column reflecting "Average Application Score," which *was* well-documented and well thought out, and if panelists had awarded that full 80 point range of possible scores to applications, THEN the scores themselves could have been multiplied by applicants' amounts requested, to arrive at a fair and reasonable distribution of monies to all applicants who didn't "fail" outright.

That was what I was trying to do, and that is what I meant when I suggested that the approach would cause "the weaker organizations (to) take their lumps due to their significantly lower scores."

Ms. Shepherd:

"You're wrong that neither commissioners nor taxpayers care to have these thousands of documents examined. You're wrong that agencies are content with this distribution of funding--or that it wouldn't have dire consequences on local services."

I never said any of the above nor do I anticipate any "dire" consequences as a result of not funding a particular grant request. Are there agencies that are upset because they did not receive funding? Sure. Have agencies unfortunately become reliant on these funds for annual budgeting purposes? Yes. Has any of these agencies had deal with adjusting their budgets due to lack of funding or reduced funding? Ask any agency that has dealt with Tenncare reimbursements in the last 10 years. Remember the Community Grants budget was cut in half! There is no way that every agency could have received appropriate funding. (i.e. giving an agency 25% or less of their requested funds for example is probably not going to be helpful in most cases.)

As for your statements about possible re-do options, this was the panelists biggest fear. Do you remember this issue was brought up at one of the first orientation meetings by a couple of volunteers? In this worst case scenario you have created (a re-do), all of our efforts were a waste of time then in your mind and apparently in the minds of all the "elected officials you have heard from." It will be a slap in the face to all the volunteers who sat on these panels if no consideration is given to the work we performed. "The process must and will be done over." What gives you the right to decide that for all County citizens. Oh Boy...a re-do...won't that create an environment where people will want to line up to particiapate in the next citizen driven, citizen review panel!

Again I am going to repeat myself for the third time...The process was not perfect. I feel confident in the outcome of the Social Services Panel. The process was far better than the method used in the past. The budget was cut in half from the last two years. It was impossible to appropriately fund every grant request. All application information was always available for review. All panelists should recommend process improvements to the Community Development Office so that a formal "citizen driven" process can be recommeded to County Commission for implementation next year.

Thank you Rachel for suggesting an improvement. Believe it r not I actually agree with Ms Shepherd that all data sets should be based on pre-determined criteria. Personally my thought process during the interview process was to take the raw score of the application, which was based on a set of standard questions that were applied to all grant requests, and assess plus or minus points per set of questions based on the requestors presentation and responce to the questions. Generally you would see my interview scores were the same as or better than the application score since generally the questions and answers provided more clarification of what was written in the application. This seemed like the most logical process since it was based on predetermined criteria and related to the first set of scores. I hope that makes sense. It is also one of my recommendations for next year in order to standardize the process accross panelists.

Tamara, you lost me on that last one..."good luck with that." Do you mean that a citizen review process should not be considered? Do you not trust that the Community Development Office can define a formal process? or Do you think that County Commission will not be able to come to a concensus on the process? Seriously, what are your thoughts?

"Whether or not staff could arrive at a better process--make that ANY process--over the next year, no, I don't think another citizen panel should be assembled to review grants. This year, staff and citizens alike are looking pretty damned stupid."

Is anyone else reading her condescending words? She has gone from bashing the propcess to calling us all idiots.

I trust you are including County Commission in that statement since they are both citizens and paid representatives of Knox County Government. You are inlcuded in that statement as well. Using that statement then we are all a bunch of idiots and no process any of us ever puts together will ever work. Why bother then? It can be inferred from such a fatalistic viewpoint that it is your intent to cut Community Development Grants completely out of the Knox County Budget. Is that where you are headed with this?

I have more faith in the citizens who volunteered for these panels than to call us a bunch of idiots. You have offended again.

"Whether or not staff could arrive at a better process--make that ANY process--over the next year, no, I don't think another citizen panel should be assembled to review grants. This year, staff and citizens alike are looking pretty damned stupid."

Is anyone else reading her condescending words? She has gone from bashing the propcess to calling us all idiots.

I trust you are including County Commission in that statement since they are both citizens and paid representatives of Knox County Government. You are inlcuded in that statement as well. Using that statement then we are all a bunch of idiots and no process any of us ever puts together will ever work. Why bother then? It can be inferred from such a fatalistic viewpoint that it is your intent to cut Community Development Grants completely out of the Knox County Budget. Is that where you are headed with this?

I have more faith in the citizens who volunteered for these panels than to call us a bunch of idiots. You have offended again.

I still want to know why the budget cut wasn't split evenly, so that the pain would have been shared and no organization that was to be funded would have been shut out.

It would have been a lot simpler than even I made it out to be above. Because the weighting between the groups was already determined by the recommended funding amounts. That was the hard part. (Whether those amounts were "fair" is another matter.)

All they had to do was apply the total budget cut (e.g. 28%) to each and every recommended grant (i.e., across the board equally). Then each and every group would walk away with 28% less solely due to the 28% cut in funding (or whatever the percentage cut). Voila. Shared sacrifice.

Did they not think of this? Certainly it was not too confusing. There has to be a reason. What is it?

The mayor does not have the authority to make this guarantee, not that this has ever stopped him. This is an easy question to ask and answer. Last I checked we have a law director.

Cansler Y is a great place with great programs; I would not agrue that it is not. The question you should ask is: Does funding this capital campaign meet the priorty objectives outlined by community development? They did tell you the priority objectives they hoped to meet with several million in grant dollars..right? Homelessness, Pulic Health, Housing, Mental Health, Etc.