Subscribe to the RSS feed.How - and Why - the Children’s Levy Works: An interview with Alissa Keny-Guyer
Alissa Keny-Guyer has served as staff director, board member and consultant to foundations, including the Hanna Andersson Children’s Foundation, Nike Foundation, Northwest Health Foundation, and the Penney Family Fund. She currently serves on the Multnomah County Commission on Children, Families and Community and on the Children’s Investment Fund Allocation Committee.
For this interview, she spoke to CHP’s Chris Palmedo about Portland’s Measure 26-94 (the Children’s Levy) which comes up for renewal this November.
Tell us a little about the Children’s Levy and why it is so important for Portland to vote “yes” on this measure.
The Children’s Levy is a renewal of a five-year property tax for Portland homeowners, first passed in 2002. The tax revenue funds the Children’s Investment Fund, which is operated by the city and overseen by an allocations committee, of which I am a volunteer member. The fund invests in low-income and at-risk children.
Research shows that it’s very important to invest early to prevent the problems that occur without those investments. The three areas of focus for the Fund are early childhood care and education, after-school and mentoring programs, and preventing child abuse and neglect prevention.
The earlier the investment, the greater the rate of return.
How do we see that rate of return?
As a society, we have accepted the responsibility of educating our children in K-12 and we provide some public funding for higher education; but we primarily view children under five years old as the parents’ responsibility. As a result, public investment in early childhood is dramatically lower.
However, a growing body of research has shown that brain development is steepest during the first three years, and that for high risk populations, quality programs in parent education, child care, Head Start, and early detection of disabilities result in up to $17 rate of return on every dollar invested.
If we want our next generation to have the tools they need to be emotionally stable and to be economically viable contributors to society, we need a substantial investment in the early years.
These early investments result in higher graduation rates and better paying jobs. People then contribute to society by putting their dollars back into the economy and by paying higher taxes. This is what creates a healthy society.
Without that kind of investment, too many kids enter schools not ready to learn. This strains the K - 12 education system, where resources are often inadequate to catch these kids up. Teachers then struggle to teach students with such varying levels of needs and abilities. It ultimately affects all of us because of the constant drain on community resources due to greater substance abuse, crime, and costs to the judicial system.
What about the other areas of focus for the levy?
While early childhood care and education is one of the most effective investments we can make, it’s important to invest in kids across the developmental span. The levy targets K-12 at-risk kids who are falling behind by supporting after-school programs and mentoring.
Much of the research has shown that kids develop their emotional and academic skills when they have strong support and positive relationships with caring adults. The levy supports such programs as Native American Youth Association, Self Enhancement Inc., Boys and Girls Clubs, and Friends of the Children.
Another issue is child abuse and neglect. Without early investments, such as parenting education and support, many parents are not equipped give their children the proper enrichment and appropriate discipline. As a result, we see a lot of child abuse and neglect, particularly with meth having been on the rise.
If this Levy passes, we’ll add a fourth area: foster kids. Oregon has one of the most inadequate foster care systems in the country in terms of its allocated public resources and its positive outcomes for children. The situation is especially dire for kids in certain ethnic groups, where a greater percent fall into and stay longer in foster care. In addition, our system has been strained in part because Oregon has been one of the hardest hit states from the methamphetamine epidemic. From 1992-2002 Oregon had the highest per capita ratio among all states of meth users, measured by those in treatment.
Voters obviously will want to know that their money will be spent effectively.
This Levy is fabulously cost-effective. Rather than build a new government bureaucracy, the Children’s Investment Fund is a great model of a public-private partnership.
The Fund has been able to stay well under the mandated 5% overhead (for staffing, office and independent evaluations) by partnering with the nonprofit sector. Through a competitive grant application process, funds are allocated to 67 programs operated by 50 nonprofits—reaching over 16,000 kids per year.
The ballot language makes clear that funds must go to proven, cost-effective programs that show return on investment in our community, rather than for pilot programs to test new strategies. Because the nonprofits are already established, with infrastructure and proven track records, the Fund expands their proven programs to reach more kids in a cost-efficient manner. So every taxpayer dollar goes a very long way!
These are nonprofits that all have strong track records, yet there seems to be a misperception among some people that the city is trying to take care of kids.
That is a misperception. The city is supporting its nonprofits which are providing expertise and resources to improve the lives of kids in Portland.
While nonprofit staff generally have tremendous commitment and skills, they typically have lower salaries and benefits than government employees. While I wish nonprofit staff were more rewarded for their hard work, the fact is that the cost of nonprofit operations tends to be lower.
On top of all that, programs like Big Brothers, Big Sisters utilize large numbers of volunteers. So you’re actually multiplying the city dollars invested in these nonprofits by giving them more resources to do what they do best, and leverage those volunteer hours.
The Children’s Levy avoids paying for program start-up costs, which are expensive. Because these programs already work well with kids, additional funds are applied effectively. Because of issues of scale, when you add money to these programs, they expand to reach more kids because the infrastructure is already in place.
Effectively expanding our community’s capacity to address social and health disparities through prevention is why the Northwest Health Foundation supports a local levy, even though NWHF operates throughout Oregon and SW Washington. Northwest Health Foundation wants to support and showcase positive models for how the public and private sectors can best work together to solve important public health issues.
One concern people have had is whether this should be a county or state initiative.
If we thought the votes were there throughout Multnomah County or the state, we absolutely would have tried it. But polls have shown that the public will to raise taxes to invest in at-risk kids is not yet there.
We would love to show the rest of the state, and even the nation, the great example of how well this is working. We’d certainly like to get other cities, counties, and states to adopt some form of this model. Unfortunately, Oregon is in a revenue crunch given our tax structure based on income taxes, as income has been going down recently.
But Portland is a community that tends to “get it.” Portland gets it in terms of public health and investing in our libraries, our parks, our schools, and our most vulnerable children.
Are any other cities doing this?
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman and his policy director, Jeff Cogen (now a Multnomah County Commissioner) conceptualized Portland’s Children’s Levy based on similar property tax measures that invested in children in Seattle and San Francisco. Those communities have shown great improvements from the dollars saved through downstream improvements.
Can you talk a little about the innovative public-private partnership on the funding side?
In addition to partnering with nonprofits providing services, another public-private partnership is with other funding organizations. There is a leverage fund, which the Paul Allen Foundation and Meyer Memorial Trust have contributed to. The Children’s Investment Fund said to these foundations, “We’re supporting these organizations. Will you match our investment in a particular initiative to make a greater impact?” Those investments have ranged from $300,000 to $500,000 — big investments!
Something exciting is that while Children’s Investment Fund dollars can only be spent on direct services, foundations can help build the capacity of groups that need equipment, staff development, board development, management assistance, grant-writing, and the reporting required by the IRS and most public and private funders. Grassroots and culturally-specific nonprofits that provide culturally appropriate services may have staff and board members who lack education and training opportunities because of the social disparities facing those ethnic groups.
So if you believe, as the Northwest Health Foundation and I believe, that providing culturally competent services is essential to addressing the social and health disparities in our society, then it’s really effective to help these ethnic service organizations build their infrastructure and get to the scale needed to address the deep-rooted and multi-faceted barriers facing their populations.
How much would an average homeowner pay for the Children’s Levy?
With a fee of $.4026 per $1,000 of assessed value, the average homeowner in Portland would pay $60.69 for this levy in 2008. This is based on the 2007 average assessed value of a home in Portland of $150,756. It’s important to note that “assessed” value is usually about half the “market” value of the property. (While I was delighted with the recent endorsements by The Oregonian and The Portland Tribune, I think their stated home value of $300,000 may have mistakenly been based on the market value of homes).
It’s a miniscule investment that goes a long way because of how effectively, and how well, this money is spent.
In the late 1980’s, Oregon Health Decisions was asked to determine underlying values of Oregonians to help develop the Oregon Health Plan. Oregonians made clear that they were interested in paying for prevention and less willing to apply public funds toward end-stage illnesses. This levy speaks to the value of prevention that Oregonians continue to feel strongly about.
Yes it does. This levy is a perfect example of the power of upstream public dollars used to prevent costly problems downstream.
