Leaders of the Social Development Commission say continuing to get funding from the state as a community action agency is their priority for keeping the social services agency in business.
Being designated as a community action agency is important to SDC because it makes the agency eligible to receive federal block grant funds that support its anti-poverty programs.
The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, or DCF, held a hearing on SDC’s community action agency designation last Friday, nearly a year after SDC suddenly stopped services and laid off staff.
‘A critical path’
“There’s a critical path in order to continue to keep the funding coming into SDC, and in that critical path, the immediate first step now is to address the relationship with DCF,” said Jorge Franco, SDC’s interim CEO and the chair of the Board of Commissioners, this week.
Jeff Pertl, secretary of the Department of Children and Families, will make a final decision after reviewing all materials and after at least 90 days from the hearing, according to the department.
William Sulton, an attorney who represents SDC, said the agency is prepared to pursue legal avenues if the state moves forward with de-designation.
“SDC will still be around, it’s just what form will they be? Will they be using 18th and North?” said Vincent Bobot, an SDC commissioner. “We’ll build it from the bottom up if we have to.”
Tapping into community
Walter Lanier, a community leader and pastor who was appointed to SDC’s board a few months ago, explained why he thinks SDC is now in a better position to address the department’s concerns after it already spent months meeting with DCF and working on improvement plan revisions.
“I think it’s extremely significant that we have, in a short amount of time, doubled the size of the board, which reflects both individual commitments and institutional commitments,” Lanier said.
At full capacity, SDC’s board includes 18 commissioners, a third of which are elected. The board’s occupied seats dwindled to three in the fall after a series of resignations and terms expiring, but recent appointments have brought the board back up to eight commissioners.
Lanier wants to increase opportunities for the community to be involved in SDC’s work and mission. He believes the board should hold elections for its vacant public seats in the near future.
Future plans
To pay owed workers and contractors, SDC is still pursuing reimbursements from DCF for 2024 work as well as from other third parties.
“SDC has been sending out those payment requests and communications to receive that money and SDC is also looking at other funding sources,” Sulton said.
DCF rejected SDC’s latest reimbursement request in a letter last week, citing a need for more documentation to substantiate expenses and concerns about outstanding payments.
To meet the department’s requirements, SDC has retained a firm to conduct a single audit, but Sulton said that process will take months and cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Franco said the department has the flexibility to grant reimbursements without a single audit, but an audit is listed as a requirement in DCF’s block grant funding policies and procedures manual.
“My hope is that they’re gaining the realization now of the difficult pathway they have ventured down now and that they will soon come to realize that SDC is the most immediate and efficient pathway to get services to the people who need them most: low-income persons in Milwaukee County,” Franco said.
SD Properties Inc., the tax-exempt corporation that owns SDC’s buildings, is also grappling with a $2.98 million foreclosure lawsuit over its North Avenue properties from Forward Community Investments Inc.
Bobot, chair of the SD Properties board, said the board has 90 days to work with legal counsel to decide what to do but is strongly considering a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
“Then we’d make arrangements to have the bank take back the warehouse and the building on 18th and North if we cannot work out an agreement to keep it, but we bought some time,” Bobot said.
Here’s more on the SDC
Everyone agrees SDC’s services are needed. But who should deliver them?
SDC’s North Avenue buildings face foreclosure risk
State schedules public hearing on future of SDC funding
Here’s an update on what’s going on at the Social Development Commission
‘We just want our money’: Former SDC employees still wait to be paid
How the Social Development Commission failed its Milwaukee residents
Why did the Social Development Commission fail? Here are takeaways from our investigation
Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
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