Support appears to be growing for a bill backed by Councilman Isaac ‘Yitzy’ Schleifer aiming to bring more transparency to the city’s grantmaking process as the legislation was formally introduced Monday during the City Council Meeting.

Councilman Schleifer’s “Accountability and Transparency in City Grantmaking” bill seeks to require certain recipients of city-approved grants to “submit certain documentation” and require the city’s Board of Estimates “to post certain information on its website.” The proposed legislation also calls for certain employees and board members of various organizations to be required to file financial disclosure information.

“This bill is aimed at solving that and making it very simple as to who has to file information so the public can really see where their tax dollars are really going,” Councilman Schleifer said. “The same thing that we require from our city employees and agencies, will be required of these organizations.”

The bill gained co-sponsors from City Council President Nick Mosby and Councilmembers Zeke Cohen and Danielle McCray. After the hearing, Councilmembers Mark Conway and Antonio Glover told “I think of course we want to make sure nonprofits are spending that money well,” Conway said. “I think “We want to make sure every dollar is spent well.”

“There should be more transparency in terms of where the grants go. I fully support my colleague,” Glover said.

Throughout several years of FOX45 News investigating how the city allocates grant money to various non-profits and community-based organizations, it’s become clear how difficult it is to track how the money spent by the organizations after the city approves the allocation.

“I too have been asking a lot of questions and hopefully this just has a uniform process in how all of these programs are handled,” Schleifer said.

After the federal government passed the American Rescue Plan Act during the COVID-19 pandemic, local municipalities received hundreds of millions of dollars in an influx of funding; Baltimore City received $641 million in ARPA funding and by law, all the money must be committed by the Dec. 31, 2024.

Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott created a separate agency to oversee the application process of non-profits and the allocation of funding. The Mayor’s Office of Recovery was created in July 2021 and Shamiah Kerney was tapped as chief recovery officer.

The city continues to make ARPA funding announcements, though there have been some frustrations from lawmakers about how organizations have been selected which is another reason why, Councilman Schleifer said, his bill is necessary.

“We’ve seen just in the past year hundreds of millions of dollars go out the door in ARPA funding and other funding and it’s important to know where that money is going, what those organizations are doing, and this bill is going to help improve that,” Schleifer said.

Councilman Schleifer has been a vocal critic of the Clean Corps program, which was created to help off-set the impact of the Department of Public Works’ staffing problem and help certain neighborhoods keep the streets clean, because he said the money should have directly to DPW to help.

“What are they providing that DPW is not providing,” Schleifer said. “This will hopefully answer a lot of questions people have as to where does that money go and if we are getting a good return on those investments.”

The Clean Corps initiative was announced by Mayor Scott and utilizes nearly $15 million from Baltimore’s ARPA allocation. The city picked six non-profits to hire people to clean up selected communities.

Mayor Scott said the communities were chosen based on the number of 311 calls reported in the areas and the non-profits were chosen through an ARPA fund selection process. According to the City of Baltimore, the six non-profits received the following allocations:

• Bon Secours Community Works, Inc.: $1,012,410 for work in Boyd-Booth, Carrollton Ridge and Franklin Square neighborhoods
• Broadway East Community Development Corporation: $658,709 for work in Broadway East and East Broadway-Midway neighborhoods
• Civic Works, Inc.: $780,322 for work in the Coldstream, Holmstead and Montebello, Darley Park and Four by Four neighborhoods
• The Lazarus Rite: $1,346,390 for work in the Harlem Park, Penn-North, Sandtown-Winchester, and Upton neighborhoods
• Park Heights Renaissance, Inc: $674,940 for work in the Arlington and Greenspring neighborhoods
• Westport Community Economic Development Corporation: $321,506 for work in the Westport neighborhood

According to Mayr Scott’s Office, the funding for the Westport Community Development Corporation is coming from the South Baltimore Casino Local Impact Funds.

There are several other programs funding through City grants that getting information about has been a struggle, Councilman Schleifer said.

For example, the Safe Streets program remains a decades-long effort with several questions. Dubbed the city’s flagship gun-violence prevention program, the city utilizes community-based organizations to implement the Safe Streets program.

In late 2022, Mayor Scott announced a restructuring in the management of the program; it went from a patchwork of CBOS managing the 10 different locations to just two: LifeBridge Health and Catholic Charities became the two organizations getting the grant funding form the city to implement Safe Streets. However, once the money is given to the CBOs, it’s not exactly clear how the funding is allocated by the groups.

“Knowing who the executive directors are, knowing who the board members are, knowing who the employees are is very critical when its taxpayer money going toward funding those organizations,” Schleifer said.

The bill was referred to the Rules and Legislative Oversight Committee for further discussion. It’s unclear when a hearing for the plan will be scheduled.