Study to help city fund and plan community centers

After more than a year researching how to improve Madison’s neighborhood centers, the city’s Community Development Division said results from its study could be ready for review this March.

The study, said Community Development Division Director Jim O’Keefe, will allow the Division to propose recommendations to city government about how to allot funding to Madison’s neighborhood centers, which cost a “significant” amount of money to create and maintain.

“[The study] is a way to try and make sense of what we currently have, and then consider changing what may strengthen the system of neighborhood centers [in] this city,” O’Keefe said.

The city allotted approximately $2 million in its 2013 budget to support Madison’s neighborhood centers, which O’Keefe said is split evenly between operation and programming costs.

The Division focused on the use of capital funding meant for the facilities themselves, such as for a renovation project, rather than operating dollars, which would be directed toward providing the centers’ programming services to neighborhood residents, said O’Keefe.

The study’s results should help city officials make difficult decisions prompted by the centers’ expenses, such as choosing between expanding the capabilities of existing centers, or adding new ones to neighborhoods in need of family support, social service, and employment programs, according to O’Keefe.

“That’s the challenge Madison has,” O’Keefe said, “to determine where in the city has the most need for those services.”

Much of the data city government currently uses to determine funding for various community centers comes from “historical” analyses which may no longer be relevant. And the city does not use the most effective, up-to-date model, said Lori Wendorf-Corrigan, the Community Development Division’s Neighborhood Services Coordinator.

Wendorf-Corrigan said the Division hopes to ensure city government conducts future business with community centers in a manner that is “rational, logical, and fundable, and to some extent, equitable.”

The city’s Community Development Division is spearheading the study, which began in late 2011, using expertise and data it gathered from the neighborhood centers the city currently funds, said Wendorf-Corrigan.

Once the study’s results are official, Wendorf-Corrigan said the Division plans to submit a set of recommendations to their department’s policy committee as well as to the Common Council and the Mayor’s office, who will then review the report to determine what course of action to take.