From: Sarah Burgess
To: Council, City
Subject: Non Profit is not a Budget Category
Date: Monday, June 16, 2025 10:40:52 AM
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Neighbors Abroad would like to thank the City Manager’s office, the Policy and Services Committee, the Finance Committee and all of Council for the efforts they have made towards ensuring that the process for giving non-profit grants is fair, equitable and aligns with Council’s priorities. In particular, we are appreciative of the recognition given by the Policy and Services Committee in recommending that we receive $12,500 on a reimbursement basis for FY 2026 for meeting our responsibilities on behalf of the city in hosting delegates from our Sister Cities. I have had the responsibility of evaluating and recommending grants in the past, albeit on a smaller scale, and know the difficulty in weighing the needs of various worthy and impactful organizations, and am grateful for the hours spent by Policy and Services Committee members in doing the same.
Cognizant of all of the efforts that have been made, as well as appreciative of the recommendation made for us, I, and the Board of Directors of Neighbors Abroad remain concerned about the process which has gotten us to this point.
I have previously written about the confusion over whether we needed to apply through this process. While we have a contract for rendering services for the city, that contract is exclusive of the funds for hosting mayors, city staff members, Consul Generals, governors, and prospective business partners on behalf of the city. These needs have been covered, on a reimbursement basis, first from Council funds and most recently, in the budget from the City Manager’s budget, rather than as part of our contract. For this reason, when less than 24 hours before the deadline for the application for this process the new process became known to me, I submitted our application.
On paper and by the strict definition, these funds should go through the NonProfit Partnership Workplan. In practice, however, this funding is far different than the grant funds primarily requested through this process.
Lumping together all non-profit requests does not make sense in application. The term “non- profit” is an IRS taxation category, and has little to do with the organizations or their partnership with the city. By way of example, Neighbors Abroad is an organization which would not exist but for its partnership with the city - it was created over 60 years ago to facilitate the Sister City relationships for the City of Palo Alto. The vast majority of cities have dedicated staff members who serve this purpose, and all of the expenses for staffing and hosting and everything else come out of the city budget. In fact, in the past the City of Palo Alto provided an administrative staff member, office space, mail service, and storage space at City Hall for Neighbors Abroad. The contract we have with the city is to recompense for the loss of these services. We provide what is a full time staff position at most other cities. In addition, however, the city has recognized that we cannot provide all the hosting necessary and has allotted us these funds to do so on an inexpensive, carefully managed reimbursement basis.
All of this goes to show how the previously existing system works for Neighbors Abroad and does so in an extremely cost effective manner for the City of Palo Alto. What doesn’t work, however, is to toss our funding into a pot with grant requests by non-profits who provide services for the unhoused, for those needing mental health services, for those with disabilities, with funding for services for children who need educational help, with funding for seniors, etc.
Particularly not where the amount set aside for all of these grants is a fraction of the funds which were in the budget for all the non-profits making these requests.
We are all for fiscal economic management on behalf of the city. In our eyes, that would require setting aside a certain amount for services for mental health; a certain amount for helping the less abled, a certain amount for seniors, a certain amount for sustainability projects, a certain amount for educational projects, etc, etc, etc. With those amounts set, the non-profits seeking funding could assess the total amount available, and make intelligent grant requests cognizant of their anticipated place in the total. Given a little more time, grant guidelines could also be provided. For example, P&S stated in evaluating several of these requests that they were not going to provide grants for staffing - unfortunately, that was not in the application. I personally agree with that position, but also feel the applying organizations should be aware of this when submitting their request. Following this process would also make clear that Neighbors Abroad’s funding request does not belong in the workplan, despite our non-profit IRS categorization.
We at Neighbors Abroad cannot represent our city well without the funds that are recommended - in fact, the recommendation made is approximately 2/3 of what was requested. In hosting, we align each year with Council Priorities. We arrange seminars for businesses on sustainability, attended by professors, Nobel Prize winners, multi-national companies interested in doing business in Palo Alto, and diplomats from our Sister City’s countries. We have outreach events attended by all of the community, aimed towards lesser represented populations. We negotiate discounts at local businesses to host the delegations, and house them in local hotels.
These funds for an already existing obligation of the city, however, should not be taken from social programs which council has recognized as benefitting our community.
In short, we request that Neighbors Abroad be removed from this process, and the funds requested be returned to the budget, preferably made part of our existing contract. Doing so would be a step towards a fair management of non-profit grant requests, as opposed to funding requests by non-profits.
Respectfully,
Sarah Burgess
President
Phone 650-996-3331
Web www.neighborsabroad.org
Email [email protected]
355 Alma Street, Palo Alto, California 94301
From: [email protected]
To: Council, City
Cc: "Lara Anthony"; "Melissa Oliveira"
Subject: The Budget & Safe Routes to School
Date: Sunday, June 15, 2025 11:12:26 PM
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Honorable City Council,
As you discuss the budget Monday night, I’m writing to ask you to please direct staff to fill the vacant
Safe Routes to School FTE position as soon as possible—ideally, before school starts this Fall. You will note that the position is funded in the FY 2026 budget before you. It also was funded in the last budget, but Transportation has not been allowed to hire someone to fill the gap. This has made it very challenging to roll out quality, consistent programming at a critical moment when staff and volunteers are working to regain ground lost during the pandemic.
One
staff person has been working more than 60 hours a week through most weeks and as many as 80 hours in weeks when education and encouragement activities are being organized and when events arise that need special attention, like e-bike problems, injury collisions, etc. This has been going on well over a year. It started when the previous employee in the now-vacant role was assigned to a project that prevented him from fulfilling his regular SRTS duties. When he eventually left the city, he was not replaced. The remaining FTE has been doing her best to do her work and his work all
that time. Continuation of this situation is untenable.
School is out for the summer, so parents, including SRTS leadership, are out of town and don’t know that there is continuing uncertainty about hiring to fill this role. We may lose parent volunteers if we cannot get back to normal levels of city staffing.
Parent volunteers previously reached out to you about this position. Here are some examples posted on the city web site:
Meeting letters submitted on 4/21 April 21, 2025 City Council Emails . See letters on pages: 2,3,12,23,28,172, 204.
City Council In-Person Meeting Statement by Lara Anthony, Chair, Palo Alto Council of This message needs your attention
This is a personal email address.
Mark Safe Report
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PTAs Transportation Safety Committee Meeting See 54:12.
Other speakers attempted to speak at this meeting, but they were not admitted via Zoom. Here is a copy of a letter written by one of those frustrated parents after the meeting.
Please direct staff to fill this position as soon as possible—ideally, before the start of school in August.
Safe Routes to School has been a shining example of what the city can do when it works in partnership with citizens and the school district. Let’s please make sure this important program gets the staffing it needs to regain ground lost during the pandemic and to reinvigorate our community culture of walking and bicycling for more trips more often for healthier, happier minds and bodies, a safer community and a greener planet.
Thank you for your recent update and Resolution in support the Safe Routes to School Partnership Consensus Statement. Filling this vacant position will be an important step to realize the renewed commitment you made to your partners in the PTAs, PAUSD partners and to our community’s intrepid foot-powered young people.
Thank you for giving my comments your usual thoughtful attention.
Sincerely,
Penny Ellson
(former 17-year PTA Safe Routes to School volunteer leader and organizer) Virus-free.www.avg.com