A resolution approving a proposed Third Amendatory Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Mile High United Way for the administration and grant disbursement of Denver’s Small Business Emergency Relief Program during the COVID-19 health crisis. Amends a contract with Mile High United Way by adding $3,500,000 for a new total of $5,705,000 for the administration and grant disbursement of Denver's Small Business Emergency Relief Program as part of the Covid-19 response. No change to contract duration (OEDEV-202054468). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 5-18-20. Councilmember Flynn approved filing this item on 4-30-20.
Council Resolution 279 will be referred back to committee. All right, Madam Secretary, if you please, for the next item on our screen, it is called out by two different members. This is 386. So, Councilor Canete, you ought to go ahead with your comments. Thank you, Mr. President. This bill is inspiring to a friend of who has made way more contact for me at the United Way to administer visits. So it takes the contract from $3500000 to $5705000 for this small emergency program. I wanted to walk through a little the history of this program really quickly before we vote on March 19, the mayor announced this program would be created. Just to take you back. That was three days, just three days after the second order. We had virtually no information about the sales taxes and the revenue service. And you can see we had no idea how long these words would be necessary for public health, the the better for the in terms of our community. And yet the administration, the mayor and the Office of. Denver. Economic Development and Opportunity Office took the courageous move to say that it was so critical to help small businesses in our community that they would immediately $24 million. So when this plan was announced, it was now announced to a million about the primary contingency. Contingency is the one source that we have for emergency to help with services and department funding. This was courageous and it was bold. We didn't ask, well, where will the money come from to build other hospitals? We didn't ask what what the impact might be of dedicating this money early. Just to give you some perspective. We care about $127 million. Denver was not signed until March 27. We did not know that there was a local government allocation or exactly where taxpayers would be and what it would be bringing to Denver. Yet we took courageous. It strikes me as you think about this pandemic, that governing is all about health care. It's about courageous actions, but it's also about corruption. I have supported these investments because they are the right thing to do, particularly for small businesses. I do not believe that we have to put everything into work. I believe that the science and the programs and the investments we make in one benefit the other every single time I believe that we sink or swim as a community together. Businesses and workers. I read from the status report the importance of investing. In workers. Who are being left behind. Workers have worked to build this community, clean this community to comfort food, many of whom have lost their jobs, and many of whom to the tune of 100,000, were not born here. Some are excluded from those programs because of their status. Some are leaving because of how they keep their taxes. And those workers are just as important to this community as the businesses who employ them. So while we look forward to our budget, we do need to be concerned. We need to think about how we're going to get through the rest of this year, which we now know will be managing this pandemic for many months to come. We need to be cautious about our city's budget and thinking about how things will get paid for for basic services. But I ask you, what is the definition of equitable? Is the definition of equity that one group we take great fashion for that group and another group are waiting to see if there's money left over at the end. I don't think so. I believe the definition of equity is that we take bold action for those who have been often left behind. We take it on page one, and that means we have to take it before we know everything at this point in time, in the coming months. I believe that this administration is injustice committed to workers as I am. We work together on the minimum wage last year with an economic equality to thousands of workers in our city. First, the contractors who do business with us and we are all the residents of the city. This mayor has been a champion. He was our partner in signing the Public Safety Enforcement Priorities Act in 2017, and he has worked to. Support. Every effort to undermine the work that we do to support the immigrant communities. So I believe we have shared values. The next step is to take that value and make it into action and find some way to bring the courage that we said to the Citizens Assistance Fund and massive and come up with these similarly sized, courageous investments and workers that can be done in partnership that can include foundations and partners. But it does take us to the city meeting. So I will be supporting this investment today because I believe that the small businesses we are helping are also a form of equity. That is not a group that answering my questions, demonstrating the number of businesses who are owned by women and people of color. We're not talking about different people here. We are talking about different entities. Right. Whether you bring attention to your business or when you bring into your household. Both are critical. So I will be voting for this today, but I voted for it because my expectation that it is the same courage we made on March 19 and we take that same cruise and we make an investment of equal equal to the workers for the next few months. Thank you, Councilmember Dodson. Reversing blocking would also help us to go ahead. Correct. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Councilman Cohen, each for those comments. I agree. Hold wholeheartedly with many of them. Is there anybody in the room who can answer questions on this contract? Yes. My question is about the overhead that's being paid to Mile High United Way. The number has changed a couple of times in my conversations. And I'm wondering if somebody can explain if the overhead percentage is changing for this amendment or if the overhead is the same for the full amount of our contract with them and what exactly that's paying for. Can you hear me? Yes. I'm Deborah Cameron from Zito. And it's good to be with you again this week. And thank you for considering this contract request in response to Councilwoman Baucus question. I want to talk a little bit about her administrative fee and her partnership with United Way and our straight into an approach with Mobile. United Way has changed since the first contract, which was our system impact opportunity, which was how United Way actually helped create and build that program and develop that program with us. So they were providing a great deal of technical assistance in that realm. So we pay you for the second expansion, which was the one shortly after March 19th, where we were putting $2 million into the by you right away. The administrative fee at that point was 10% for the first $10 million. And what that paid for at that time was mile high because of the expertize that they had in implementing in the fire funds and they provided in-depth training to our businesses are stepping up to speed in terms of not only helping us develop the application and scoring criteria, but really the financial analysis that our teams had to do with each of the applications to demonstrate and understand the financial impact that COVID was having on the on revenue streams. So they provided a great deal of technical expertize and assistance in that first $2 million segment of grams, which we announced 290 words at the end of last week for the contract extension modification that you're considering today. The administrative media's dropping down. To. 5% of the contract agreement because we feel like our team is fully. Up to speed. I will remain available. For daily phone calls with their team to continue to talk about questions. But primarily one role. Will be to execute payments to the companies that were awarded and selected by the U.S. government to function in this. And that criteria that was created. We've asked for that a couple of times. Who who is who needs to provide that Mile High United Way or DITO facility? Though I know we have presented information on the steps and factors of how the applications are scored, and I'm happy to go back through those the seasoning or up with you. Now, it's just the seven factors. It's not a rubric. It's a rubric with a numerical values for and the and the subsections. Yes. Okay. I'll follow up for that. Thank you. That's all my comments, Mr. President. Thank you. Next up, councilmember for. No. No. Oh, I saw your hand. I'm sorry about that. Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. So since the last meeting where this came up, I think it was our committee meeting, I had raised some questions and concerns about nonprofits and food banks. And I did have an opportunity to talk with Erik Crockett from Dito, and he assured me that they are putting out some funding that will be available for nonprofits. And I wanted to ask Debora. I texted him, but did not hear back yet if she has any idea how much and when that will be put out. Because many of our nonprofits are the very people they're not necessarily classified as businesses, but they're being expected to really do so much more with so much less . And a lot of them who would historically rely on volunteers, many of those volunteers are not coming in because of COVID. And so I would just like to know when those dollars will roll out. And is there a max amount that's being set aside to assist our food banks and nonprofits specifically? Can you pull that a little closer there? Thank you. I can't answer your question specifically, but I do know that I thought there might be more submitted. Ideas coming to this. Over the weekend with. Some suggestions. On how it would be used against. You. I don't know if I could. But I think discussions are ongoing, and I think you're. Expected to share some potential ideas as early as Friday. And I just want to make a comment. Mr. President, I appreciate the work that the administration has done in trying to help our small businesses. We have many of them struggling very, very hard. Not all of them got any of the stimulus funding. And it was like the ones who got in there first were the ones that got funded and anybody else who came behind because there were so many. Unfortunately, not everybody got some of that funding. I also agree with Councilwoman Kimmich about the the focus and the need for protecting our workers. A lot of workers are being expected to show up and and have masks. We need to make sure those are being provided for the workforce. A lot of low income workers were struggling just to pay rent and to put food on the table and didn't have money to buy masks. So those are some of the things I think we need to be addressing and will be talking to to Mr. McDonald about that when he's on the northwest town hall on Thursday. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. And if you're staying put, we're just saying we have another question coming in from council member Joe. Thanks, because. I can't get out as far as Vito's capacity. Things not in the first. Allocation, there was 150,000 for technical assistance, knowing that there was a low number. And the other point that's been made by my colleagues, equity, it was top priority for us. And so with the very, very small number of businesses who were wanted in this. First round, I think. There were nine that were. And can you talk a little bit about how many staff within the DOE are going to be assisting folks who are contemplating applying for these? But that's a great question. And other questions that. Were was asked last week was how. Was the breakdown between. Enterprise reporting to self? And based on the 290 words that we have announced. That we went to writing, 44%. Were either in the neighborhood or in the. Communications. But to get back to your specific question, we have probably over 20 people that are now working on this project, and we're going to go from the 1980s voting of health help. We're going to talk about helping out. So I would say in total, we have about 20 different people. We do have some bilingual staff that are available to. Help. Individuals and companies who might. Need. Reading. Applications as well. And also the staff of the Office of Financial Empowerment. We've been partnering with. Them and they're also working. With companies that might need a little. Extra help responding to an application. As well. And we're also utilizing as well the degree to work with with some of our. Businesses because they work. In their real. So we're driving across the city. Great. Thank you for that information. And. You know, we always have folks who want to apply for something that they just don't have the capacity at this point in time. So I would ask, as you're going through applications or if you identify specifically folks who have applied. That maybe they need some. Help with the technical assistance that. We have, some sort. Of game plan to give them that assistance. Maybe it's in the SEC around the city, but that we're really setting them up for success. We really are making this effort and I have never seen. The company to respond to questions and provide technical. Assistance. And we actually saw an email that went to the Denver Post this weekend specifically thanking their team for reaching out and providing them personal touch in terms of phone. Calls because. So many of the other services that. They provided for. Them having that kind of personal attention. And our team really is dedicated to putting ourselves. In the position and they're working on. Themselves. And it's been it's been both personally and a little bit traumatic. Francine Anderson. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. I'll raise other comments on this one. We're going move on to the next one. Secretary, please put the next item on our screens. This is 393. And Councilmember CdeBaca, you close enough for comment? Go ahead.