Budget crisis threatens youth-serving groups

City Department drops Mission Science Workshop and many other nonprofits

By Alex EmslieThe Guardsman

The mayor’s scramble to close San  Francisco’s $483 million projected deficit hit home for many  youth-serving community organizations with the recent cuts to the  Department of Youth, Children and Their Families budget.

Many  nonprofits dependent on DCYF allocations to stay afloat were not awarded  any grants. That’s the situation the Mission Science Workshop — a  hands-on science program with City College roots — is in today.

“The  Mission Science situation is critical in that, without the DCYF  funding, they might shut their doors,” said Kathleen White, chair of  City College’s child development and family studies department, a  Mission Science Workshop partner.

Dan Sudran, the workshop’s  founder, said he expected some level of cuts to public funding of his  program, but he didn’t expect to lose half his budget — the yearly  $120,000 the workshop receives from DCYF. The rest of the workshop’s  funding comes from private donations and grants.

Beginning June  30, the end of San Francisco’s current fiscal year, many child- and  youth-serving community-based organizations will see city funding  drastically reduced or eliminated if the current budget is approved.  These programs provide a wide range of services to San Francisco  children and their families, like violence prevention, mentoring, job  training and educational support.

“We’ve always really thrived in  San Francisco,” Sudran said. “This is the first time we’ve ever really  got a blow on the head, which is what it feels like.”

DCYF  cuts

The DCYF website states that $20 million was available  to award for the next fiscal year, but requests for funding totaled  approximately $72 million.

“In terms of funding, we literally  don’t have the money,” DCYF Director Maria Su told the city Board of  Supervisors budget committee on April 28. “We’re looking at an $11  million reduction to our budget.”

Supervisors David Campos, Ross  Mirkarimi, and budget committee chair John Avalos agreed the cuts to the  DCYF budget were unreasonable, and that the department should be exempt  from the mayor’s request that all city departments submit a 20 percent  budget reduction for next year.

The mayor must submit next  year’s budget to the board by June 1 and then approve a final budget by  July 30.

“A lot of people in this room did not get what they  requested in our Requests for Proposals process, and there are a lot of  people in this room who provide high quality programs,” Su said to the  committee chamber packed with community-based organization  representatives waiting to testify about cuts to their program. “We just  ran out of money.”

She defended the DCYF decision-making  process, which uses an assessment of social and economic factors  concerning San Francisco youth by neighborhood to choose the amount of  money awarded to programs, stressing the need to maintain the quality of  the programs that will be funded.

“It made no sense for us to  give everyone $20,000 grants,” she said.
But Sudran said being  completely dropped by the city would hurt his ability to acquire private  funding.

“Our feeling is that even if it was a small amount, it  could make a huge difference,” he said. “It’s kind of embarrassing when  you go to a corporation or a private foundation and they want to know  how sustainable you are and you can’t even say that the city is  supporting you. In fact, if they look into it, they can see that the  city actually dropped you like a ton of bricks, like you were infected  or something.”

The Mission Science Workshop’s staff of three  serves about 3,000 children yearly, mostly from Mission district schools  belonging to San Francisco Unified School District — 2.5 times the  service requirement set by the DCYF.

“They’re so into quality  controls and performance standards,” Sudran said. “Then when you not  only comply with them all but you actually overperform, this is what you  get?”

Early activation

There is a social justice  aspect to providing early activation in science learning to children,  White said.

“One critical issue is that we have an achievement  gap in science,” she said. “In many low-income areas in San Francisco —  the Mission being one of them — our kids don’t do as well in science.”

California  ranked second lowest of all states on eighth grade science achievement,  only above Mississippi, according to a 2005 National Center for  Education Statistics assessment.

A 2007 UC Berkeley study titled  “The Status of Science Education in Bay Area Elementary Schools”  described early activation in scientific curiosity as a crucial aspect  to improving California’s low science performance rate.

“They’ve  sort of determined that the crucial age for getting people interested in  science is between 5 and 12 years old,” Sudran said. “If you haven’t  done it by then, it’s a really low probability that you’re ever really  going to be able to do it.”

White said the social benefit of  housing a hands-on science center in a neighborhood where science  achievement has been historically low is “kind of a no brainer.”

“I  understand from a developmental point of view that all children should  be scientists and they begin to be scientists as soon as they start  talking,” she said. “They ask questions about the natural world and the  order of things, and that kind of curiosity should be fostered. That’s  very related to learning, and learning is very related to success.”

Facing  extensive cuts within their department and a much greater need due to  the recession, the DCYF is facing a “perfect storm” of economic  conditions, White said.

“You have less money, more need and fewer  people to get the money out,” she said. “It’s really just this process,  and if the process isn’t fully supported, it’s destined to be  problematic.”

Worst case scenarios

San Francisco’s  budget is not yet finalized, and there is still a possibility that  money could be added back into the DCYF budget. Supervisors Bevin Dufty,  David Campos and Sophie Maxwell introduced a resolution requesting the  city controller’s office to conduct a review of DCYF’s award decisions  to present to the board in time to adjust the 2010-11 budget.

“Some  of the choices that are embedded in this proposal are not only wrong,  but I actually think they’re dangerous because they leave communities  with high levels of need without programs that are not only good  programs, but are actually vital to the health and safety of those  neighborhoods,” Campos said.

While “add-backs” to the DCYF  resulting in some restoration of funding would help the Mission Science  Workshop and other youth-serving non-profits, the budget maneuver only  covers next year. DCYF grant awards cover the next three years.  Even  with some add-backs, community based organizations would have no  guarantee of funding for 2011-12, when the city’s budget deficit is  projected to top $750 million, or for the following year.

Meanwhile,  Sudran splits his time between doing what he loves, teaching science to  kids in the Mission, and advocating for funding for his program. He is  also actively planning for additional community science workshops in  California through a grant from the S. D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation.

The  worst case scenario is if the current budget passes, he said, meaning  no add-backs or restoration of funding, and the workshop would be cut  off from city funding for the next three years.

“We would figure  out how to continue,” Sudran said. “I don’t think I could imagine  ditching the program.”

Sudran said he would be left with the  option of firing the workshop’s two employees and running it himself,  serving less than one third of the children he does now, or forgoing his  own salary and benefits and registering for social security and  medicare to support himself. Or a private donor could cover the loss.

“Crisis  can be opportunity,” Sudran said. “We’ve exponentially increased our  amount of outreach because of this crisis. All kinds of people are  finding out about us that didn’t know, including a number of supervisors  who didn’t know about this program. Now they do, or they’re going to  know. The mayor is for sure going to know.”