Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes the Executive Director of Mayor’s Office of Education to modify a grant agreement authorized by ordinance 1390-2021, with the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio (WDBCO), to modify the original scope of work and extend the contract to August 31, 2024
Original Grant/encumbered $ 5,855,232.00
Amount allocated $3,000,000.00
Amount spent $1,348,791.00
WDBCO balance $1,651,209.00
Encumbered balance $2,355,232.00
Ordinance 1201-2021 authorized the City of Columbus to accept and appropriate approximately $187,030,138.00 of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds as signed into law by the President of the United States on March 11, 2021.
For 33 years, I Know I Can (IKIC), a not for profit organization, has been the anchor organization for college access in Columbus, with recent expansion into additional Franklin County districts. IKIC achieves its mission, “to inspire, enable, and support Columbus students to pursue and complete a college education,” by focusing service efforts around three critical junctures for students: early awareness of college and career opportunities, postsecondary access, as well as summer melt prevention and postsecondary persistence. WDBCO will contract with I Know I Can to administer this initiative.
Due to COVID-19, in the 2020-2021 school year, many Columbus City Schools (CCS) students had not acquired enough credits to graduate high school or matriculate to the next grade level. Ordinance 1390-2021 provided crucial funding for Summer JAM: a collaborative initiative to assist students with acquiring high school credits and provided them summer employment and other programming.
Of the $5,855,232.80 encumbered by ordinance 1390-2021, WDBCO invoiced the City for, and received $3,000,000.00. Of this, only $1,348,791.00 was spent. A balance of $1,651,209.00 and $2,355,232.00 remains encumbered.
Unfortunately, another consequence of the pandemic has been real...
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