Berkeley paid roughly $607,000 to a nonprofit and its subcontractor for a state-funded youth cannabis program, but a local evaluation and city records indicate that large chunks of the work never occurred. The one-million-dollar Prop 64 grant was partly returned to the state after the program missed targets and failed to deliver the promised ad campaign or peer-led trainings. City staff say they reviewed invoices and withheld some payments, yet the outcome has fueled fresh calls for tighter contracts and stronger oversight.
County evaluators found core deliverables unmet
According to a local evaluation published by the Board of State and Community Corrections, Berkeley Youth Alternatives and its subcontractor failed to meet many of the contract's central objectives. Evaluators reported that the peer-educator component never produced training for other students. They also found that BYA reported serving 48 counseling clients over three years, even after the city had already negotiated counseling enrollment targets down from an original range of 75 to 180 students to a lower range of 25 to 60 new students.
City budgets show continued support for BYA
City budget documents show Berkeley continued to send money to BYA after the grant period ended, including a $125,000 counseling-center appropriation and $35,000 for a Summer Jam day camp, as detailed in the City of Berkeley. That budget packet also lays out invoicing and reporting rules that give the city manager discretion to withhold advances and require quarterly fiscal documentation from grantees.
Invoices and political ties stirred scrutiny
Invoices and city records reviewed by reporters show BYA ultimately billed about $607,000 by the project's end, while roughly $235,000 of the original $1 million Prop 64 award was returned to the state. The records indicate that from January through July 2022, Upline Solutions, BYA's subcontractor, was the primary recipient of payments, while BYA did not invoice for many personnel costs during that stretch. Evaluators also found that Upline never produced the contracted ad campaign and did not convene the task force until early 2024.
State filings list Upline Solutions' formation in October 2019 with Patricia Brooks and Yelda Bartlett on the paperwork. Brooks later took a senior staff role in Oakland city government, a set of connections that ethics observers say at least looks bad. "It breaks the public’s trust that their money isn’t being well spent," Davina Hurt told the San Francisco Chronicle.
What the city can do next
The city's own budget rules give staff several tools to enforce contracts, including requirements for fiscal reports, support for withholding advances and the option to terminate agreements for non-performance. Those provisions appear in the same FY25 budget packet referenced above. City records also show that BYA continued to receive both annual and one-time allocations after the Prop 64 work wound down, raising questions about how Berkeley tracks performance when organizations receive money from multiple city funding streams. Public records indicate staff returned incomplete invoices and requested corrections during the grant term as part of their oversight efforts.
Broader accountability questions
Berkeley's experience now sits alongside other California examples of how Proposition 64 funds have been spent and monitored, from polished ad campaigns that hit their marks to programs that had to send money back to Sacramento after falling short. As the state and local governments review results, critics and some officials argue that this episode underscores the need for clearer procurement language, stronger documentation and more transparent public reporting about who gets paid and what they actually deliver. City leaders in Berkeley will face growing pressure to tighten contract terms and make grant outcomes easier for the public to see and verify.
