Testimony to Multnomah County Board - Accountability of County Spending Incl. JOHS
Today I would like to discuss the topic of accountability of the Joint Office of Homeless Services as well as general overall accountability of the County’s spending.
Chair Vega Pederson, we were thrilled to hear about you forming a new Data Task Force and including Commissioner Meieran in that effort. We believe that the County can determine the best tools to collect data, even if that just means updating current methods of collection or reporting. And of course truly implementing the Built for Zero program would provide us with a swath of data specifically related to the homelessness and behavioral health crises facing Multnomah County.
We want to see better metrics and data coming out of the nonprofits and the Joint Office of Homeless Services. The Built for Zero program would assist in this effort by giving us a base to start from so we can point out flaws and fix them - that is what continuous improvement is all about, and we should constantly be auditing, self-reporting issues, and striving to improve to get the best bang for our taxpayer dollars.
We encourage the County and the Joint Office to take a look at the Houston, Texas model, wherein the county assigned singular tasks to nonprofits to help boost effectiveness and cohesiveness amongst a large group of service providers. This encourages the correct agencies to handle the service areas they are most skilled at and removes wastefulness in attempting to handle too many service items than they are equipped to. Forcing all parties to come to the table and work together might actually turn 211 into a program that feels more useful to those in immediate need feeling hopeless after trying to seek assistance.
It would also make sense to revamp the oversight boards to include a diverse group of front line workers, emergency service providers, and regular community members whose tax dollars are at stake, as well as local business owners, particularly from the real estate industry that have been begging to help. In reviewing the two different oversight committees, very few people were not somehow related to receiving County funding in their day jobs. You should absolutely reinstate the Central Community Budget Advisory Committee immediately - it shouldn’t be difficult for a representative from every oversight committee to show up and speak about their budgets, especially when you are asking for more openness and data.
Multnomah County is starting to lose many people in the higher tax base because they are no longer seeing a return in their investment from our once beautiful County. We can’t just keep raising taxes without any oversight and expect the tax base to not revolt by relocating, at which point we find ourselves with an imbalance of how much money is flowing out to social programs than in. We are happy to hear your calls for more data and accountability, and we want you to know we support that.
Thank you.