The City of Portland's Office of Community and Civic Life (Civic Life) is once again under scrutiny, this time for mishandling a grant non-compliance issue with a local nonprofit, East Portland Neighbors (EPN), which led to inefficiency and waste of public funds. An investigation by the Auditor’s Office, spurred by a tip to the city's Fraud Hotline, revealed that after financial discrepancies with EPN, Civic Life still managed to overspend by $13,394 beyond the allocated grant amount intended for purchasing liability insurance for neighborhood groups, according to the City of Portland.
This was not a simple case of oversight. Civic Life had been experiencing financial issues with EPN since September 2022, but instead of terminating the grant agreement following EPN's failure to provide necessary documentation and payment for insurance policies, Civic Life chose to allow the agreement to naturally expire and took on the responsibility themselves. It's a decision that flies in the face of what one expects from organisations entrusted with public money, especially considering that other City bureaus remained unaware of EPN’s financial troubles and continued to engage with them.
The investigation by the Auditor's Office, led by Performance Auditor Jessica Lange, also highlighted a systemic problem of poor communication between City bureaus, exacerbating the issue. When the grant agreements ended in June 2023, Civic Life didn't effectively communicate these concerns about EPN's financial issues, which ultimately resulted in other bureaus continuing to work with the troubled nonprofit, as per the City of Portland.
Responses from the city administrators expressed agreement with the Auditor's findings and recommendations. They outlined the implementation of the new Outgoing Grant Administration policy as of September 2024, establishing guidelines for awarding grants, which should help stymie such inefficiencies in the future. Moreover, the Grants Management Division is reportedly developing guidelines to specifically address grant agreement non-compliance and dispute resolution issues. The hope is that these steps will shore up a grant administration process in desperate need of transparency and accountability.
