By Joan Crigger and Shannon Holmes
May 10, 2004

Mayors and city human services officials from across the country participated in the second annual Mayors and Working Families: An Agenda for Cities meeting May 3 in Washington (DC). The meeting took place as part of the partnership between The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and was held in conjunction with the 28th Annual City Human Services Officials meeting.

Richmond (CA) Mayor Irma Anderson, Chair of the Mayors Standing Committee on Health and Human Services, welcomed all participants and thanked them for showing their commitment to ensuring that working families in the nation's cities are provided needed assistance.

Other mayors attending the meeting included Conference Vice President Akron (OH) Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic, Warwick (RI) Mayor Scott Avedisian, Maywood (IL) Mayor Ralph W. Connor, and Mt. Vernon (NY) Mayor Ernest D. Davis.

Human services officials at the meeting represented the cities of Akron (OH), Alexandria (VA), Atlantic City (NJ), Baton Rouge (LA), Boston (MA), Burlington (VT), Fort Worth (TX), Honolulu (HI), Malden (MA), Marlboro (MA), New Bedford (MA), Oakland (CA), Rochester (NY), Seattle (WA), Trenton (NJ), Tulsa (OK), and Washington (DC).

Bonnie Howard, Senior Associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) opened the meeting by thanking everyone for attending. Howard explained that the basic belief of AECF is, "Kids do well when their parents do well, and their parents do well when they are in a supportive community." As a result AECF has created Families for Economic Success (FES) and Kids Count. The purpose of FES is to provide sufficient and substantial support for low-income working families. This is done by tying together workforce development and investment, economic support, community investment, and education about building assets. Kids Count is an annual report that focuses on the economic factors of families and how they affect the lives of our nation's youth. This year, Kids Count was focused on the high cost of being poor and the short and long-term effects it has on children from low-income families.

Best Practices

The morning session was highlighted by Anderson, Avedisian, and Davis providing best practices on programs in their cities that assist working families.

Richmond

Anderson stressed that she believes the mayor is responsible for kids during out-of-school time, even though she does not have control over kids inside the school. As a result, the mayor started the Kids First initiative in two high schools and one middle school. The after'school program mixes academic and cultural activities to provide well-rounded opportunities for the youth in the district. Anderson also teamed up with the state trade unions to tie practical skills of technical jobs, like plumbing and carpentry, with academics as part of the offerings for kids after'school. With $200,000 start-up funding from city coffers, $1.8 million was leveraged with funding from the federal 21st Century Community Learning Center program.

With the problem of diminishing resources throughout the city and lack of room to handle the demand for the after'school programs, the city council threatened to stop funding "Kids First." Anderson's commitment to the program was such that she walked door to door obtaining nearly 3,000 signatures in support of continuing the initiative.

Anderson concluded by stating, "Youth are our future and there is a need to invest in them, they are our citizens too."

In Warwick, Avedisian strongly believes that, "All youth should have a safe place to live and grow up." Through funding received from traffic fines, the city hired two teachers to work with 18 highly at-risk students at the junior high level. Based on the support from teachers through this pilot, 96 percent of the students stayed in school and more than two thirds made the honor roll.

In addition, to address the tardiness and truancy issues in Warwick elementary schools, the city issued family court subpoenas to children who showed up late or not at all to school. This was a means to get people in one area and register them for the services that they were eligible for. As a result, there was a 60 percent decrease in elementary truancy and the drop out rate for the high school is only three percent.

There is a real public transportation problem in Warwick, especially for crossing town, which has caused people to have trouble accessing and utilizing services they very much need. To address this problem, the mayor set up a center where all city and state services are offered in one location, which is situated directly on a bus route to provide easy access.

In Mt. Vernon, eleven percent of the 70,000 residents live below the poverty line. In an effort to help poor families, the city has focused on the hardest-to-employ population through programs that pay $10 an hour to work in city parks and other non-technical jobs. When an employee is motivated, the city assists in moving the individual into a more substantial job and/or training.

During the summer, there are 20,000 children in the city. The demand for summer jobs far outweighs the resources available. In an effort to support summer employment for youth and programs in school and out-of'school, the city requires that new businesses opening in Mt. Vernon make an investment in the city through scholarships, direct investment in schools, or the city's recreation facilities.

The mayor stressed that youth are an important part of all cities and they need to be taken care of and celebrated. In order to do this the city holds several events throughout the year including a "Parade for Excellence" to honor kids doing well academically, concerts, Grand Prix Go-Cart Races sponsored by local businesses, and Safe Haven after'school programs.

Davis stated, "All adults need to be the voice for youth to policy makers. We need to take care of children when they are young, so we do not have to pay for it in more ways than one in the future. Youth are the future and they need to be taken care of now."

Following the mayors' discussion, the human services officials also shared efforts occurring in their cities. These activities ranged from using youth to build affordable housing with partnerships with the Home Builders Association in Akron, to integrating computer programs in Baton Rouge city departments to provide effective services to its citizens, to the doubling of earned income tax credits (EITC) in Rochester. Common threads throughout the best practice discussion were the utilization of 21st Century Community Learning Center funding to service children during the after'school hours and helping working families with childcare.

In a separate session, Walter Webdale, President and CEO of AHC Inc., addressed the mayors and human service officials about affordable housing. Based in Arlington (VA), AHC Inc. has been able to provide over 4,000 people housing within 19 multi-family developments in Arlington Country. Furthermore, the company has established partnerships with SunTrust Bank, The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, and the MacArthur Foundation making it possible to provide over 600 children with after'school programming and 1,000 family home loans, 250 for first-time buyers and 750 for home improvement.

With the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) legislation currently up for reauthorization, congressional staffers provided an update to the mayors and human service officials. Attending congressional staff included Kate Kahan, Professional Staff for the Minority Senate Committee on Finance; Becky Shipp, Health Policy Advisor to the Majority Senate Committee on Finance; and Barbara Pryor, Senior Legislative Assistant for Senator John D. Rockefeller (WV).

Senate staff believe that partisan politics will unfortunately decide the fate of the TANF reauthorization bill.

Although the House passed its bill early last year and the Senate Finance Committee passed its legislation last September, Senators have been unable to come to agreement to debate on the floor until this year. However, the bill hit a roadblock again when it was brought to the Senate floor for debate in April. The first amendment to be considered was offered by Senator Olympia Snowe (ME) to add an additional $5 billion to childcare funding. It passed by a nonpartisan vote of 78 to 20.

Following Snowe's amendment, the Democrats were allowed to offer a non-germane amendment to increase the minimum wage from $5.15/hour to $7/hour over two years. A heated debate took place over two days when a vote for cloture on the amendment failed to receive the necessary 60 votes. The result caused Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN) to pull the bill from the floor.

Democrats are concerned about the flexibility to states, the marriage incentive programs in the bill, and the problems that are expected to arise in conference with the House, specifically around the unfunded mandates. In addition, Pryor stated that Senator Rockefeller, along with Senators Gordon Smith (OR), Ron Wyden (OR) and Blanche L. Lincoln (AR), plan to offer an amendment for state penalty relief. This would allow states to improve their participation rate by five percent each year without being penalized.

The current extension of the TANF program expires June 30. If there is no movement on this legislation within the next month, a sixth extension will be needed, subject to congressional approval. There are concerns that the House could pass an extension that would include the $1.5 million healthy marriage incentive program. The Senate Democrats have indicated they will not agree to this as part of the extension.

In light of the growing deficit it is certain domestic discretionary programs are going to bear the brunt of cuts. Dr. Isabel V. Sawhill, Vice President and Director of Economic Studies at The Brookings Institute and co-author of Restoring Fiscal Sanity: How to Balance the Budget, provided the attendees an overview about the "Big Squeeze" budget situation that not only the federal government, but also localities, will face over the next ten years. The best-case scenario is that localities will take a minimum 16 percent reduction in all funds. This will cause a huge increase in competition for funding for all domestic programming.

Over the past two years, The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Annie E. Casey Foundation established the Partnership for Working Families to build national attention to and support for the challenges facing working families in America today. The purpose of this joint effort is to catalyze mayors in cities to improve economic opportunities for working families across America.

If you would like more information on the Partnership for Working Families please contact Joan Crigger, Assistant Executive Director, at (202) 861-6728 or jcrigger@usmayors.org.