The City of Bend’s financial team is looking to create its first houseless operations fund, for a chance to keep better record of the money they spend.
The $7.2 million fund would be made up mostly of state and federal grants ($6.9 million) and partially through taxpayer dollars ($245,000).
It’s a budget that the city already put in place to contribute toward homeless operations when staff created the 2021-2023 bi-annual budget, but they say creating an official fund would allow for more transparency with the public and better record-keeping.
“As we’ve gone through the last couple of years and had shelters kind of come online and those operations have have really gotten solidified, we felt like having it in its own fund just really helps us internally manage the revenues and expenditures,” said the City’s Finance Director Janette Townsend.
City Council will discuss the proposal for the fund at Wednesday night’s meeting.
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That $7.2 million is only set to last through the end of this year, supporting City-funded shelter operations, managing rights of way, and paying for larger one-time expenses for shelters.
“That’s the amount that we believe will cover the expenditures and other operations that have been approved by council at this point in time,” Townsend said.
It might be simply shifting funds from one place to another, but Townsend says it’s a key step between the city and those who need the money.
“Having this fund really allows us to make sure that we’ve got full transparency, and really just enables us to better manage and and have those revenues expenditures in that single place,” Townsend said.
If the new fund is approved, it will be a permanent part of the budget moving forward.
The council meeting begins Wednesday at 5 p.m. at city hall.
