Education, improving opportunity corridor and workforce development part of Bibb’s new $40 million in proposed projects: Stimulus Watch
Originally published January 9, 2023 by Lucas Daprile, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Mayor Justin Bibb announced Monday his plans to use $40 million in COVID-19 stimulus funds for a series of programs, including education, workforce development and improving Opportunity Corridor.
The largest expense category is $17 million for “education for everyone,” followed by $14 million for workforce development and improving land at Opportunity Corridor, $6 million for a “participatory budgeting” fund and $4 million to improve the city’s 311 call service.
If approved, the funding would come from Cleveland’s $512 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars.
Bibb’s proposals still need to go through the legislative process, in which city councilmembers will hear testimony, propose amendments in committee and eventually cast a vote.
If this ARPA approval process goes like Bibb’s last one, project dollar amounts and specifics won’t be released until legislation is drafted and introduced to committee.
However, Bibb did provide some broad program details in an interview with cleveland.com.
Education/workforce development
The education category can be broken down into three programs. The first is funding school programs such as tutoring, after-school programs and teacher support programs.
A particular area Bibb wants to invest in is “high dosage literacy tutoring” to help young students recover the reading and learning losses following a pandemic that led to sagging test scores in key subjects, Bibb said.
Similar to Cuyahoga County’s plan, Bibb also wants to spend ARPA money exposing K-12 students in CMSD to existing career opportunities, and improving mental and physical health access for students, he said.
The education funding won’t just focus on K-12 students, Bibb said. He also plans to use ARPA money for education programs that help adults finish getting GEDs, diplomas or certifications, particularly in “high-demand” areas, such as construction, broadband and lead remediation.
“We have billions of dollars in the pipeline from the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill and we want to make sure our workforce is ready for those jobs, so we can take advantage of those opportunities that we have right now,” Bibb said.
While Bibb said there isn’t a list of specific organizations or programs to be funded, he mentioned some ideas that have his attention. One is Ginn Academy, an all-boys school in CMSD that has both a higher graduation rate than the district average and a strong emphasis on workforce readiness, according to media reports.
“We want to identify which of those are best practices, and how do we scale those quickly to make sure every child has the skills they need to compete once they graduate from a CMSD high school?” Bibb said.
Development/Opportunity Corridor
Bibb also wants to spend ARPA dollars developing sites – particularly those in Opportunity Corridor – so they’re attractive to industry.
In fact, Bibb said, the city is already focused on remediating one property, but he declined to say which one. In another parallel to Cuyahoga County, Bibb envisions spending ARPA dollars remediating “brownfields,” which are former industrial sites that are either contaminated or believed to be contaminated.
The city already owns north of 15,000 parcels that need remediation, and getting some of those areas back online to produce jobs is a city priority, said Bibb’s chief of staff, Bradford Davy.
“If we want to bring jobs to people, we have to focus on activating sites that maybe aren’t as ready to go,” Davy said.
Other projects
Bibb also proposed a series of smaller-budget projects in this batch of requests.
One of those is $5.5 million to PB CLE – which stands for Participatory Budgeting Cleveland. The group is a nonprofit that seeks to give voters a way to more directly influence how projects in their neighborhoods are funded.
One of the reasons Bibb supports participatory budgeting is because he believes it will help increase voter turnout in the city.
“I endorsed this effort as a way to do democracy-building in Cleveland,” Bibb said.
What appeared to be dozens of supporters of participatory budgeting took to the steps of City Hall on Monday night, and several offered public comments at City Council’s meeting in support of the proposal. The backers identified several reasons why participatory budgeting is a good way to boost civic interest and engage new voters in a city with low voter turnout. They urged council members to vote in favor of Bibb’s proposal.
Another proposal calls for $4 million toward upgrading the city’s 311 system, which would make it easier for residents to report code violations, potholes and tree trimming issues to the city. Cleveland is already in the process of upgrading the 311 system, as a formal request for proposals was published in September.
The remaining $850,000 would go toward developing a “long-term violence prevention strategic plan.” While the violence prevention category comprises only a small portion of this funding request, Bibb said the next round of funding requests could include “an evergreen fund to support promising practices that we know are proven to reduce violence in our respective communities.”
What’s more, Cleveland’s housing officials have been saying for months that additional “housing for all” projects could be on tap later, but none were mentioned in this funding request.
Bibb has largely been successful in getting through his agenda for spending the city’s ARPA money, which must be allocated by the last day of 2024 and must be completely spent by the end of 2026.
In August, Bibb proposed spending $102.5 million in ARPA dollars on a series of projects. Major projects included that batch -- such as “housing for all,” incorporating more mental health officials into emergency response, arts, gunshot detection technology and more -- have already received final approval from City Council. In October, however, Bibb sought to change a law meant to improve lead safety after it had already passed, leading to some brief tensions, but ultimately a compromise saved the proposal.
After this new legislation is introduced, Cleveland will have $45 million in ARPA money that has yet to be spent or allocated, spokeswoman Marie Zickefoose said in an email. A significant chunk of the city’s ARPA funds, $167 million, was recently moved to a “strategic initiatives” portion of the city’s general fund.
Here is how the new legislation breaks down:
$10 million for Ohio Means Jobs Cleveland, Cuyahoga County to “grow local workforce pipelines in key industries”
$5.5 million for participatory budgeting
$5.4 million to create “educator innovation groups,” hire an education strategist and fund pilot program grants for educators
$4 million to improve the city’s 311 system
$3.7 million to support student access to physical and mental health services
$3.5 million to match JobsOhio grants for acquiring brownfield sites near Opportunity Corridor and improving them
$3 million to fund Ignite!, a virtual tutoring program and Amira, a personalized literacy program
$2.1 million for the Greater Cleveland Career Consortium for career programming in schools
$998,600 to establish a violence prevention strategy
$984,500 for Cleveland Municipal School District Transformation Alliance to create groups for parents who want to improve their children’s schools
$730,625 for Possip, Inc. to provide schools with technology needed to more quickly process feedback.
$400,000 for Seeds of Literacy and Ohio Means Jobs Cleveland-Cuyahoga County
$300,000 to provide adult education services, including funding College Now Greater Cleveland, Inc.