Human services funding

Cincinnati City Council is asking the United Way to be involved in funding recommendations for the city's human services dollars for up to another year. But what happens after that is unclear and still being debated. 

A Cincinnati council majority appears ready to let the United Way handle how the city's human services funding is distributed for at least one more year.

Cincinnati City Council is still trying to find the future process for funding human services agencies. And right now, there are differing opinions on what to do.

Cincinnati could soon make changes to the way it distributes funding to human services agencies.  

Since 2010, the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, with an advisory committee, has administered the process of deciding which organizations receive human services funding from the city.  

Updated: Thursday, 12:40 p.m.

Two Cincinnati council members introduced a proposal Thursday that would ask voters to increase the city's admissions tax by 2 percent, with the additional money generated used to fund human services organizations and neighborhoods.

A committee is recommending 43 programs receive human services funding from Cincinnati in the new fiscal year. Those programs are administered by 33 agencies.

Council will have the final say on whether the more than $3.4 million is provided in the budget, which must be approved by June 30.  

Cincinnati provided $3.25 million for 36 human services programs, which leveraged another nearly $21 million from other sources during the last fiscal year.

Cincinnati Council settled a dispute today over how an extra $350,000 in human services money would be spent.

Cincinnati Council could vote Wednesday on a proposal to spend $250,000 for violence prevention efforts in the city.

The city's Human Services Advisory Committee approved the funding proposals in September, and council's Human Services, Youth and Arts Committee unanimously approved the proposals Monday.

Cincinnati Council could be asked to make major changes to the way the city provides money for human services programs.  

That includes increasing the city's contribution to these agencies, but also targeting it toward two specific goals:  reducing joblessness and homelessness.  

The changes would begin with the new fiscal year on July 1st.  

The United Way of Greater Cincinnati administers the human services funding program for the city.

Cincinnati's Human Services Advisory committee has finished work on its funding recommendations for next year.  

Christie Bryant is the chairwomen of the group.

“After careful consideration of impact, alignment and accountability, we recommend funding 56 programs,” Bryant said.  “Two programs unfortunately are not recommended for funding.  Because of the short notice to these programs, we do recommend providing them with one-month transition funds of $1,000 each.”