A bill for an ordinance approving a proposed Sixth Amendatory Agreement between the City and County of Denver and State of Colorado Judicial Department, to pay for personnel to provide a school based gang prevention program. Amends an agreement with the Colorado State Judicial Department by adding $75,807.82 for a new total of $999,637.73 and six months for a new end date of 6-30-20 to continue the work of the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID) program, citywide (SAFTY-201100301; SAFTY-201952991). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 6-29-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 6-3-20.
Thank you, Councilmember. All right, that concludes the comments on this item. Madam Secretary, if you please put the next item on our screens and that will be Bill 508. Councilmember CdeBaca, go ahead with your questions on. You're right. Thank you, Mr. President. This one is up for first reading. But I do have a question. I have a few questions to list for you to take back. But my main question here is the dates. So we're adding $75,807 and six months for a new end date of 630, 2020. Can you explain the the contract change and the date and what exactly this is funding? Yeah. Thank you for your question. Good evening. Council Members Michael Sapp, Department of Safety. That dollar amount is reflected for the first six months of this year because of COVID and uncertainties with how the IPS will be operating during COVID. We're going to cut that contract short. And so that 75,000 is reflective of half of that contract. And so what is the half fund? So the half is for two FTE positions with our Colorado State Judicial Department. Two positions. One is for our great program and the second is for our state judicial gun probation. So there are two FTE for probation officers that do work in our schools. Our great program to date has served over 9000 students and our successful rates of kids who enter into the school and maybe they're possessing a gun. The success rates for Denver County are around 57% approval rate compared to about 46% across the state. So we see a lot of success. Hang on. Hold on. Walk me through that again. Yeah. Metric for success. Yeah. So great question. So we are pulling out my notes. So the state of Colorado, we have the juvenile intensive supervision program. And for Denver, for individuals, young people who have handgun cases, the success rate for our individuals was 57%. For those outside or statewide, the success rate was 43%. But what is the success like? What is. Yes, yes, yeah, great question. So when we do our intervention services, it's it's basically administered to Sean Combs, who's our chief probation officer. And it's several different tactics that they use. It's one is supervision, and then they do prevention and they do suppression work. And it's in tandem with our grant network and our grant network. They provide family counseling. They also provide partnerships with community organizations to help with food. And so they walk or they track a young person making sure that they're in class, they're completing their class, that they're in home at a certain period of time, and that they're completing all of the necessary requirements from the state. So is this funding the gun pilot that we had been discussing and safety? No, that's a separate request. And that's a that was the handgun that was a program out of Mobile, Alabama, that our state our state partners were pursuing. But that that's not a part of this. And I forget what that's called. It was the hip program, handgun intervention program. So this gun probation officer is a Denver thing. Is this something that we've always had or what makes this gun prevention or what makes this probation officer different than all the rest of them? Yeah, this program has been in effect since 2011. And what's different about our program is that we we are and this is what the Grant Network is really in partnership with community partners. So for folks who are unfamiliar with Grant, it's, it's, it's a program that's, that's based on three, three tools, prevention, intervention and suppression. And we have grid networks struggle them on below. We have the Dream Center that serves Southwest Denver. And then we have impact empowerment. That's in Councilman Herndon's district. And these three providers, they work with our probation officer, probation chief probation officer Sean Cone. And so once an individual or young person is has been identified as being either gang involved or has some gun case, they they work in partnership to identify what the needs are. Because understanding that and it's a great question with the struggles and not being in schools anymore. And while we're advocating for new safety programs and grit to take a more elevated role in our schools is because we are actually looking at the whole system or looking at the whole the whole person, rather. And so that's what makes it unique is that it's in partnership with the community and we do wraparound services with the entire family. So this is just on first reading, but some of the questions that I'm looking for answers for is a specific breakdown on how the dollars are going to be used. Can you give us some numbers about success and metrics and a fully, fully formed definition of success and where we can get information publicly? Because on the Denver Gov website, there are some drop downs, but there's no downloadable data about the impact of this program since 2011. And as we move officers out of schools, I think it's important for us to be very conscious of how the city uses officers with young people, and this is one of those contracts that does deals directly with our young people. So I want us to scrutinize this one a little bit more heavily than we have in the past. Yeah, these are probation officers. They're more like. Officers. But yeah, I got two or three questions. Let me just repeat them. Breakdown at dollars, breakdown of what success looks like. And then just from a transparency perspective, where can you find this effort or these programs happy to provide us. And the explanation on how we're operating in a time of COVID without the access to the schools that the great program relies on? Yeah. So these contracts come to an end on 630 this this month. And so we were considering bringing or separating these two contracts after July 1st and doing an RFP process, given that we've been operating these contracts since 2011 of actually doing a competitive bidding process and looking at other community partners that could come in and do the work in partnership with the state. And so that was the goal to separate the great contract and the gun court probation manager, and we were planning on doing that after July 1st. So I think your question. As long as we get a breakdown of where $75,000 is going within two weeks, that would be helpful. We have that information. Thank you. Yeah, there are a couple other in the queue, so you might stay there. Councilmember Gilmore. Thank you. President Clark. Michael, following Councilwoman say to Bucky's questions and follow up, you said that this would cover two FTE positions. So is the 75,087 specifically to cover those two full time positions. So so when you mentioned Struggle of Love or other community organizations, none of the 75,087 and $0.82 is going to struggle, love or community organizations? That's correct. There. Those three providers are paid out of our professional services and that's around $600,000 for struggle of impact, empowerment and the Dream Center. Okay. And then so this is going to go towards paying for two FTE positions. And are the probation officers if if we weren't in a COVID situation, are those individuals actually in the physical school building? Yes, they they are. And they work with the they work with the principal to make sure that there is supervision inside the school and outside the school. Is there a reason that that happens during the school day? Wouldn't it make more sense for the student to be in class? Yeah, so great question. So typically what they do is they'll meet with the principal beforehand and they'll they'll recommend time like gym or lunch will they'll do a check in, but that it just depends on the case and the severity of the incident. And if a young person has a gun or is seriously involved in a crime, then that would potentially require some level of supervision inside of the school. So as a follow up, I would like a little bit more information about exactly how these two FTE positions interface with both Denver public school students and the school personnel. And, you know, when we're talking about community organizations, this is almost $1,000,000. If the 75,000 is added in and to councilwoman say to Baca's earlier question about the 2.5 million that was possibly going to Eckerd, that adds up to almost $3.5 million, both through workforce and through this agreement with the Colorado State Judicial Department. And those are dollars that we would like to now keep in specifically black communities and figure out how we work that and how we expedite that and saying that people might not have the. Capacity to do that. As small organizations. I think there's a lot of support in the community to make sure that organizations can build that capacity as we begin to phase out old systems and asking new questions about that. And so I'd really like to get a little bit more information because as much work as the GRID program does in our community , since I was elected in 2015, I have attended seven vigils in the Montebello and our community specifically. And so I don't know how well this is working. It's clearly not working for some of our families and students. And I just want to make sure that we're evaluating it fully and that you're providing all that information to counsel so that we can ask good questions. And appreciate that. And I appreciate the honest assessment. Great. Thank you. Thank you, President. Clerk. Thank Councilmember Councilmember. Thank you. Great questions from my colleagues. I was just looking up because I wanted to refresh myself. We had a great presentation on the full program back on 531 2018, and so I just found the presentation in Granicus. So, you know, it's helpful as I'm looking at it, some of my questions were asked about dollars that are going to community groups from other budget items. So I know that councilwoman back box request was for how this 75,000 is being spent, but it's helpful actually to see the whole picture since this is just one grant. Yep. It sounds like we also might need the exact language on what these funds are eligible for and what the rules are under the state. To Councilwoman Gilmore's question, it sounds like this money's already spent. Truthfully, this contract is the work is already ending. So I think this is more about looking to the future than, yeah, you know, this is going to be done. But the other question I had was, you know, in terms of other prevention efforts, you know, grasp or other community based organizations, I believe we are funding as well. If you have a quick answer on that tonight, that's great. But if you're not adding that in, well, even both, if you have a quick answer, but then adding that information to what you provide to us, because it's hard to look at one piece of the picture and understand what we're doing. So I'd like to see kind of that whole picture. And again, this PowerPoint from, you know, it's now a little outdated, but it does have kind of that whole picture in it. But maybe something's changed since then. So we are we still funding grasp from the city and if so, from what budget is that being funded? Yeah, we are funding grass through the Department of Public Health and Environment Excellence. So we're doing some of our gaming. So and I just can I ask a naive question, is the difference that this particular program we're here to talk about tonight is for youth who are already justice involved. Okay. So this is more about preventing the occurrence reoccurrence. And then we have other funding streams that are about prevention, for lack of a better word, further upstream before someone's just started. That is correct. This is more on the intervention side. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Wyatt speaking to take Councilmember. Can you just wonderful words yet again to ask a naive question, why are we paying more to exit sooner? It's just because we got to fill. We're if we're we're filling the fault but half of the half of the half of the year so is from is from start date of January to June 30th. So what was this? Was this for a full year? This is for half the year. But the but we're so we're changing the end date to six 3020. What was the original end date? The original. End date was scheduled for December. And we're we're amending that to cut it short on the 30th of this month. So the so the original total was for December for $999,000. No, no, no, no. That's okay. I know that that dollar amount is reflective of the full contract since 2011. Okay. Thank you. That that that answers my question. Thank you for and and indulging me. The other question I have is you this is ending this contract but you also mentioned our of PS and whatnot. Denver public schools just unanimously voted to exit. Sorrows out of our schools. What have. I'm assuming you're in consultation with TPS. And if so, what are their thoughts about any sort of future program that are along these lines? Well, school board members T Anderson and Jennifer Bacon, they passed that resolution on last Thursday. And they've tasked Superintendent Suzanne Cordova with putting together a strategy to have before the board in August. And what we've communicated to the Board of Education to Superintendent Suzanne Cordova, is that we want to be a partner. We have Denver youth safety programs that is in schools today or currently they do pre-arrest diversion programs. They're there at North High School, they're at West Campus. And that these are programs that are designed to in that school to gyp school to prison pipeline. And so if we're going to remove SRO as out, then could we look at these type of restorative justice practices inside of our schools with community partners because you safety programs, they have community partners that they do work with as well. And so can we have these conversations? And the answer to that question is yes. And so we're going to start we're a part of that stakeholder gathering process that Suzanne Cordova is going to be working with to kind of provide some expertize and also to begin to look at what's the future of of our relationship. I think it could be a great one. I think I stand and supportive of argue safety programs office. The work that they did at North High School and West Campus were phenomenal. I was I did the version when I was at my Bell High School. I know Councilwoman CdeBaca did the version as well. And we both landed in really good positions. So I believe in that program, and I think that that can help replace that SRO role that historically was in school. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember. All right. See no other questions or comments on this one. We're going to move on. And that was our last one. So that concludes the item to be called out this evening. Our bills for introduction are ordered published and council members remember that this is a consent or block vote and you will need to