BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
BUDGET ANALYST
1390 Market Street, Suite 1025, San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 554-7642
FAX (415) 252-0461

October 15, 2008

Honorable Aaron Peskin, President
and Members of the Board of Supervisors
City and County of San Francisco
Room 244, City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689

Dear President Peskin and Members of the Board of Supervisors:

The Budget Analyst is pleased to submit this Management Audit of Communities of Opportunity. The Budget Analyst conducted this audit pursuant to the Board of Supervisors powers of inquiry as defined in Charter Section 16.114.

The management audit evaluated the purpose and effectiveness of Communities of Opportunity, a public-private initiative begun in May 2006. The management audit assessed the appropriateness of the initiative's goals and objectives, its strategies and plans for accomplishing those goals and objectives, the degree to which its goals and objectives are being accomplished, and the data it uses to evaluate the goals and objectives. The scope of the management audit included Communities of Opportunity business planning and performance measurement, City oversight, City department and agency implementation of Communities of Opportunity programs, and community involvement.

As outlined in the Introduction, the management audit was conducted in accordance with Government Auditing Standards, 2007 Revision, issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Overview

Communities of Opportunity is an "umbrella" organization for economic development, physical infrastructure improvement, and poverty reduction programs in the Bayview/Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods. Communities of Opportunity grew out of the Human Services Agency's Seven Corners Study that found that "the City and County spends millions of dollars on a small number of children and families, but the services are disconnected." To address this issue, the Mayor announced the creation of Communities of Opportunity in October 2004, stating that the program was a major policy shift in community development, creating a partnership between the City and philanthropic donors that would assist low income families in acquiring home ownership and gaining access to childcare, education, health care, employment, business opportunities, and housing.

Following the October 2004 announcement, the Mayor's Office prepared and completed the Communities of Opportunity Pilot Phase Business Plan (2006 Plan) in May 2006 with the assistance of a consultant, the Bridgespan Group, funded by private foundation grants.[1] A 13-member steering committee, consisting of seven City department directors and six Mayor's Office staff provided input to the 2006 Plan.

According to the 2006 Plan, "The vision of Communities of Opportunity is to create safe and healthy neighborhoods that provide opportunities for individuals and families to achieve self-sufficiency and, for children to realize their dreams& Communities of Opportunity will transform the neighborhoods by changing the way the City, residents, community-based organizations, foundations and the private sector do business."

Under the 2006 Plan, Communities of Opportunity was to have been implemented in four locations in the Bayview/Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods adjacent to four public housing projects (called "nodes" in the 2006 Plan): (1) Hunters Point, (2) Hunters View, (3) Alice Griffith, and (4) Sunnydale.

Communities of Opportunity's goal was to move 50 percent of families in the four nodes into fiscal stability with income more than 185 percent of the federal poverty level by 2011, or within five years of the 2006 implementation date.

Communities of Opportunity's Revenues and Expenditures

Private foundations provided $1.8 million in FY 2006-2007 and $2.0 million in FY 2007-2008 for poverty reduction programs targeted to the four nodes. These funds paid for planning, outreach, administration, and programs and services as shown below and discussed in more detail in the Introduction to this report.[2]

In FY 2008-2009, the City has budgeted approximately $193,000 for Communities of Opportunity expenditures, including approximately $186,000 in General Fund expenditures in the Mayor's Office to pay the salary and fringe benefits of the Mayor's senior staff member serving as the Director of Communities of Opportunity, and approximately $7,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds for office space provided by the Mayor's Office of Community Investment. No other City department directly budgets for Communities of Opportunity expenditures except as noted above, although some departments do allocate existing resources in working with Communities of Opportunity. The Director of Communities of Opportunity reports directly to the Mayor and is responsible for relationships with the private funders, the City departments and agencies that interface with Communities of Opportunity, and the community.

Additionally, Communities of Opportunity pays the staff costs of the Deputy Director of Communities of Opportunity and the community staff. Private foundation grants fund these staff costs, which were $231,859 in FY 2007-2008. These positions are:

• The Deputy Director of Communities of Opportunity supports City departments in planning programs as part of Communities of Opportunity, and collects and analyzes data for program planning and evaluations.
  
  
• The community-based staff, consisting of the four site coordinators assigned to the four Opportunity Centers (or community centers) located at Hunters View, Hunters Point, Alice Griffith, and Sunnydale; and the peer coaches, who are Hunters View, Hunters Point, Alice Griffith and Sunnydale residents providing outreach and support to residents of these four nodes in the areas of housing, truancy and jobs/benefits.

The following table shows the Communities of Opportunity's FY 2006-2007 and FY 2007-2008 revenues and expenditures, excluding the City's costs for the Director of Communities of Opportunity and office space.

As shown in the table above, Communities of Opportunity expenditures for planning, outreach, and administration, including expenditures for consultants and conferences, were approximately 55 percent of total expenditures ($2,049,484 out of $3,704,095).

During the first two years, Communities of Opportunity spent funds on several one-time programs to generate awareness of itself, both within the four nodes and among community development professionals. The largest community event was the Communities of Opportunity Comedy Shop, presenting performances by six comedians and the hip-hop group Def Jam. Communities of Opportunity spent $570,882 for conference costs, mostly for the National Community Developer Association annual conference in June 2007 for community development professionals.

In the first two years Communities of Opportunity provided eight new programs through community-based organizations, focusing on youth services and adult employment. Communities of Opportunity tracked program participation. According to the July 1, 2008 Fiscal Year-End Report to the foundations, these Communities of Opportunity programs "had mixed success& For some programs, such as Heritage Camp...and the Academic Athletes afterschool program (discussed in Section 2 of this report), we have been very successful in recruiting participants...For others,& such as the Talented Tens and College Kids, neither program was able to fully enroll their allocated slots."

Changes to Communities of Opportunity in 2008

Communities of Opportunity developed a Business Plan Update in May 2008 (2008 Plan) in which Communities of Opportunity would no longer provide programs. According to the 2008 Plan, Communities of Opportunity "learned that there were many challenges inherent in directly funding catalyst programs in the community. As a result, we have shifted our focus to developing the on-ramp programs in conjunction with our partner departments." The on-ramp programs are intended to facilitate Communities of Opportunity residents' access to City services, as discussed in Section 2 of this report.

Several of the foundations currently funding Communities of Opportunity will most likely continue to fund the initiative over the next year or two (beginning in FY 2008-2009 through FY 2009-2010), although the extent of the funding is not yet known. Several foundation representatives met with the Mayor and the Director of Communities of Opportunity on September 15, 2008 to discuss future programs and funding [4]. While the proposed Communities of Opportunity budget for the next two years is shifting from programs and services to program planning and oversight and community outreach through paid community staff, the foundations have not yet committed to a level of funding.

Key findings in this management audit include:

• More than two years after the May 2006 implementation of Communities of Opportunity and with less than three years to reach its 2011 goal of moving 50 percent of families living in the four nodes into fiscal stability, Communities of Opportunity is still in the early planning stages for most of its initiatives. From 2006 to 2008, Communities of Opportunity was mostly involved in planning and outreach with 55 percent of its expenditures allocated to planning, outreach, and program administration. While 45 percent of Communities of Opportunity's expenditures were for programs providing services to Communities of Opportunity residents, these programs had mixed success. Therefore, Communities of Opportunity shifted its approach in the May 2008 Business Plan Update from directly providing programs and services to instead working with City departments to develop on-ramps to City services.
  
  
• The 2006 Plan did not define how City departments were to participate in Communities of Opportunity, although the 2006 Plan stated that "Communities of Opportunity will transform the neighborhoods by changing the way the City, residents, community-based organizations, foundations, and the private sector do business." As a result, City department participation has been uneven and slow to develop. Although the 2008 Plan emphasizes implementation of Communities of Opportunity through City department programs or initiatives, City departments, such as the Human Services Agency and the Department of Economic and Workforce Development, are still in the early planning stages for most Communities of Opportunity programs or initiatives. Currently, City departments are using existing department resources to plan or develop Communities of Opportunity programs and have not developed separate budgets for these programs.
  
  
• Communities of Opportunity has lacked a governance structure since its inception in 2006, resulting in inadequate City department oversight and involvement in Communities of Opportunity. Although the 2006 Plan called for a fiscal advisory committee to be made up of foundation and City department representatives and a 13-member steering committee made up of Mayor's Office and City department directors and representatives, the fiscal advisory committee met for the first time on September 22, 2008 during the management audit and according to the Director of Communities of Opportunity, the steering committee met only three times during the 28-month period. The City is only now convening an Interagency Council of City department directors and representatives to oversee not only Communities of Opportunity but also four Citywide initiatives, including the Violence Prevention Program, Transitional Age Youth, Hope SF, and CityBuild and Workforce Development as discussed in Section 1 of this report [5].
  
  
• The 2006 Plan states that Communities of Opportunity will "manage change dynamically by quantifiable outcomes; expand successful approaches, stop failed ones, and introduce new evidence-based approaches," and the 2008 Plan highlights the need to track program engagement in the short term while evaluating progress toward long term goals. However, Communities of Opportunity lacks a single central agreed-upon set of goals, and in fact has goals that are both redundant and inconsistent and lack a clear relationship to one another. Further, City departments face technical and legal barriers in collecting and sharing program data to measure program results and attainment of Communities of Opportunity goals.
  
  
• Although Communities of Opportunity has opened Opportunity Centers - or community centers - at Hunters View, Hunters Point, Sunnydale, and Alice Griffith - and hired community staff, Communities of Opportunity has not developed active community participation as intended in the 2006 Plan. Community staff conduct informal meetings at the Opportunity Centers, but Communities of Opportunity has only conducted two formal community meetings with residents and City representatives during the past two years.

Overall, this Management Audit of Communities of Opportunity includes 5 findings and 20 recommendations. The Budget Analyst's recommendations are attached to this transmittal letter. The following sections summarize our findings and recommendations.

Section 1. City Oversight of Communities of Opportunity

In May 2006, Communities of Opportunity's Pilot Phase Business Plan (2006 Plan) laid out an oversight strategy that would include a steering committee made up of 13 Mayor's Office representatives and City department directors and a fiscal advisory board made up of six to eight City department and private foundation representatives. The 2006 Plan stated that "a steering committee of agency directors& will continue to meet periodically" but did not define the role of the steering committee. The 2006 Plan stated that the "advisory board composed of public and private representatives would oversee the disbursement of Fund resources and provide advice to the Mayor and program office on the implementation of Communities of Opportunity."

However, from inception of Communities of Opportunity in May 2006 through September 2008, or more than 28 months, the steering committee met only three times and the fiscal advisory board met for the first time on September 22, 2008 during the management audit. While Communities of Opportunity has received some oversight and guidance from its private foundation supporters, no formal City entity provided oversight and coordination among City departments.

The Mayor's Office plans to convene an Interagency Council that extends beyond Communities of Opportunity's neighborhood focus with the first formal meeting expected to occur prior to December 2008. The council will consist of City department directors, some of whom would also participate in the advisory board as discussed on page 7 in Section 1 of this report. The proposed Interagency Council s scope of responsibility would include oversight of the Citywide Violence Prevention Plan, the Hope SF redevelopment of public housing, the Transitional Age Youth program, and workforce development. The Interagency Council would also be tasked with coordinating Citywide spending on poverty reduction programs managed by the Human Services Agency, Department of Public Health, and other City departments.

Through the establishment of the Interagency Council, Communities of Opportunity involvement is shifting from the original focus on the four nodes - Hunters View, Hunters Point, Sunnydale, and Alice Griffith - to the Citywide Violence Prevention Plan, Transitional Age Youth, Hope SF, and workforce development initiatives. While Communities of Opportunity intends to coordinate these Citywide initiatives with Communities of Opportunity programs in its four nodes, it risks loss of focus. Therefore, Communities of Opportunity needs to carefully define its relationship with the four Citywide initiatives to maintain its focus on the four nodes and consistency with the 2008 Plan.

Section 2. Responsibility of City Departments in Implementation

The 2006 Plan never clearly defined how City departments were to work together to identify and develop programs as part of Communities of Opportunity. Consequently, City department participation in Communities of Opportunity has been uneven and slow to develop.

The Department of Children, Youth, and their Families was the major City department participating in Communities of Opportunity programs in the first two years (FY 2006-2007 and FY 2007-2008). Because Communities of Opportunity's focus is families, the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families helped plan or partially fund several programs through their established grant-making process including:

• $100,000 to the Heritage Camp, a summer day camp for youth living in the four Communities of Opportunity nodes that was first conducted in the summer of 2006.
  
  
• $350,000 for the Parent University, of which $300,000 was allocated to the Department's Family Ambassador Program to provide outreach and support in the Communities of Opportunity nodes. The Parent University began in January 2008.
  
  
• $100,000 for Academic Athletes providing year-round sports programs combined with academic tutoring.

As noted above, beginning in FY 2008-2009, Communities of Opportunity has shifted from directly funding private programs to working with City departments to provide on-ramp programs to existing City initiatives, including development of public housing under HopeSF, workforce development, and guaranteed college tuition assistance for students graduating from high school. As discussed above these on-ramp programsare intended to facilitate Communities of Opportunity residents' access to City services. The six City department or agency on-ramp programs assisting Communities of Opportunity residents are the:

1. Rental Assistance Program to assist residents who are behind in their rent payments to become current;
   
   
2. Individual Development Accounts to assist residents to develop savings plans and financial management skills;
   
   
3. Job Readiness to provide training and job placement to residents;
   
   
4. Single Stop Benefits Screening to assist residents to apply for public benefits
   
   
5. Parent University to provide parenting and childcare skills to residents; and
   
   
6. Gateway to College to assist residents in obtaining high school equivalency or associate degrees, as discussed on page 13 in Section 2 of this report.

Of the six on-ramp programs:

• Communities of Opportunity participants point to the Rental Assistance Program, which has been developed jointly with the Mayor's Office of Housing and the San Francisco Housing Authority, as the main achievement to date. Although Communities of Opportunity plans to implement the Rental Assistance Program in all four public housing nodes, as of the writing of this report, the Rental Assistance Program has only been implemented at the smallest of the four public housing nodes - Hunters View.
  
  
• The Single Stop Benefits Screening Program has been launched by a non-City private philanthropic organization at the four public housing nodes.
  
  
• The Individual Development Accounts program has not yet been developed.
  
  
• The Gateway to College is a national school drop out recovery program to which the Communities of Opportunity, Community College District, and Unified School District are submitting a joint proposal for funding but the program has not yet been implemented.
  
  
• The Parent University began implementation of its programs for parents and children in January 2008. As of June 12, 2008 the Parent University had begun offering eight-week workshops to train parents to "be advocates for themselves and in their neighborhoods," and setting up Malcolm X Middle School as a community center.
  
  
• The Office of Workforce Development is in the early stages of working with Communities of Opportunity to develop job readiness programs for Communities of Opportunity residents, and expects the first group of participants to begin in January 2009.

As noted above, three of the six programs have not yet started.

In August 2008 the Human Services Agency, Mayor's Office of Housing, Office of Workforce Development, and Communities of Opportunity jointly released a draft Hope SF Pre-Development Resident Services Plan. The intent is to coordinate City-funded services for public housing residents prior to development of public housing under Hope SF[6]. The draft Hope SF Pre-Development Resident Services Plan considers expanding Communities of Opportunity on-ramp programs to other Hope SF public housing sites scheduled for redevelopment [7], potentially shifting Communities of Opportunity's geographic focus from the original four Communities of Opportunity nodes.

Because the major City department programs and initiatives related to Communities of Opportunity are still in the planning stages, and in fact three of the six programs have not even started, actual successful implementation of these programs is far from certain. The Director of Communities of Opportunity will need to work with the Interagency Council to ensure follow-through on these programs and initiatives. Furthermore, although City department on-ramp programs - such as the Rental Assistance Program or Parent University - could meet specific program goals, Communities of Opportunity's current structure and process do not demonstrate how these programs will contribute to Communities of Opportunity's stated purpose of "strengthening the southeast sector" as a whole.

Section 3. Data Sharing Among City Departments and Agencies

The 2006 Plan intends Communities of Opportunity to be a data-driven initiative, stating that Communities of Opportunity will "manage change dynamically by quantifiable outcomes; expand successful approaches; stop failed ones, and introduce new evidence-based approaches." Communities of Opportunity faces technical, legal, and process obstacles to collecting and sharing City department client-level data. During the next 9 to 12 months, Communities of Opportunity plans to pilot coordinated case management for approximately 150 families who live in the Hunters View and Hunters Point nodes and are involved in multiple City systems - such as Juvenile Probation, foster care, CalWorks, or other systems. Coordinated case management calls for two levels of data-sharing: (1) family-specific data that allows case workers to plan programs for families; and (2) aggregate data that allows tracking and measuring long-term outcomes for Communities of Opportunity families as a whole. Several City departments, including the Human Services Agency, the Department of Public Health, and the Juvenile Probation Department will need to share client data in order to implement City department's planned coordinated case management for families involved in multiple systems. However, because (a) City department information systems lack technical compatibility, and (b) State and other legal and confidentiality restrictions prevent sharing of most family-specific data among different City departments, City departments are unlikely to implement the data-sharing required to support coordinated case management within the 9 to 12 month timeframe.

Further, the work plan for implementing coordinated case management does not specifically address developing systems for data sharing. In order to develop the shared database needed for coordinated case management, Communities of Opportunity must develop a work plan for developing data sharing systems, including a Memorandum of Understanding among the participating departments that clearly defines roles and responsibilities and addresses confidentiality requirements. The Director of Communities of Opportunity will need to work with City departments to develop realistic budgets, staff and information technology resources, and time schedules for coordinated case management data sharing.

Also, more than one City department manages programs, such as CityBuild, that provide services or programs in the Communities of Opportunity's nodes. City departments, such as the Human Services Agency and the Department of Economic and Workforce Development, collect different types of program data, depending on the program requirements and funding sources. Communities of Opportunity will need to work with City departments to standardize data collection that can be used to evaluate programs specific to the Communities of Opportunity nodes.

Section 4. Performance Management

According to the 2006 Plan, Communities of Opportunity is intended to "manage change dynamically by quantifiable outcomes; expand successful approaches, stop failed ones, and introduce new evidence-based approaches." The 2008 Plan highlights the need to track program engagement in the short term while evaluating progress toward long term goals, stating that "we can use these metrics to test what hypotheses seemed to have worked and where our efforts didn't produce the outcomes we hoped. & Unless we track these activities it will be difficult to tell if they are having the effect we hope on the overall picture."

However, Communities of Opportunity lacks a single central agreed-upon set of goals. The 2008 Plan sets out three separate sets of goals: (1) 2011 Goals, (2) Smart Government Goals, and (3) End Goals. These goals are both redundant and inconsistent, and lack an expressed relationship to one another. Further, as discussed in Section 3 of this report, City departments will need to resolve technical and legal issues regarding data-sharing as well as standardizing the types of data that is collected in order for there to be an effective evaluation of Communities of Opportunity programs.

For example, Communities of Opportunity's 2011 Goals state that (a) a majority of families will be stable or self-sufficient (able to make ends meet); (b) a majority of children will be flourishing (able to pursue their goals); (c) less than 10 percent of families and children will be in crisis; and (d) communities will provide a safe environment, sound physical infrastructure, connected social networks, and sustainable economic vitality. However, only two of these goals are reported in Communities of Opportunity's primary progress reporting tool (the "Dashboard"): (a) a majority of families will be stable or self-sufficient; and (b) a majority of children will be flourishing.

The Smart Government Goals differ from the 2011 Goals and are tied to three policy areas: (1) housing which includes healthy, high quality homes for all San Franciscans; (2) employment, which include living-wage jobs with opportunities for career advancement; and (3) youth/education, which includes that all students graduate high school and have the ability to go to college. According to the 2008 Plan, Smart Government is one of three components necessary to provide City services more effectively and improve results for families living in the Bayview/Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley (called "Theory of Change"). The Theory of Change components include (1) Strong Communities, including community participation, (2) Serious Collaboration among public and private partners, and (3) Smart Government providing services more effectively.

The End Goals list ten goals that correspond to three "change elements": (1) policy, (2) systems, and (3) community. Despite a similarity, these categorizations only somewhat match up with the Smart Government, Serious Collaboration, and Strong Communities components of the Theory of Change noted above. The ten End Goals correspond to the following three change elements:

(1) Policy change element goals are to eliminate barriers to getting on and climbing the job ladder; help people living in the Bayview stay in the Bayview; and ensure kids go to school, stay in school, and have meaningful afterschool activities.

(2) System change element goals are to provide coordinated case management; share relevant data across city agencies; and create multi services centers that address different populations'needs.

(3) Community change element goals are housing stability; family stability; financial stability; and community stability.

The lack of consistency undercuts Communities of Opportunity's ability to meaningfully gauge its progress, achievements, or shortcomings. In order to be the "data-driven initiative" that it aspires to be in its business plans, Communities of Opportunity needs to establish one set of goals and align its strategies, projects, quantitative objectives, deadlines, and data ­­to those goals.

The Communities of Opportunity End Goal Matrix is a useful performance measurement tool that would benefit from further refinement. Communities of Opportunity uses the Matrix to report on its progress toward the ten End Goals noted above, aligning achievement "strategies" to each goal, quantitative and qualitative "targets" or objectives to each strategy, and deadlines for those targets. Communities of Opportunity updates and reports the Matrix in its semiannual financial reports. This Matrix presents Communities of Opportunity's efforts into an initiative-wide perspective and should therefore be further emphasized, particularly on the Communities of Opportunity website and in reports to elected officials and the public. In order to connect short-term objectives to the overall goal of reducing poverty, the Matrix should be tied to the Dashboard. The Matrix should include specific projects and project targets, quantitative objectives beyond 18 months, and improve the alignment of existing targets to strategies.

Communities of Opportunity's quantitative targets and objectives often seem arbitrary, and generally lack a relationship to similar efforts. For example, the Dashboard reports aggregated data on the stability or self sufficiency of Communities of Opportunity families, counting the percentage of families that are "in crisis," "economically fragile," and "stable or self-sufficient." The definitions and quantitative targets for "crisis," "fragile," and "stable" families are not standard Federal or state measures. Furthermore, the targets are not benchmarked against other cities' efforts. Although Communities of Opportunity may be a structured differently from programs implemented in other cities, many of Communities of Opportunity's components and strategies are based on established programs elsewhere. Therefore, Communities of Opportunity and City Departments can and should measure the City's progress against that of other cities.

Section 5. Community Communication

Although Communities of Opportunity is intended to change San Francisco's processes for providing City services to low-income residents by directly involving community members, Communities of Opportunity has not followed through on many of its proposals for community participation. For example, the 2006 Plan required Communities of Opportunity to conduct formal community meetings to gather community input, and the 2008 Plan clarified that these meetings should occur quarterly. However, since May 2006, Communities of Opportunity has only held two formal community meetings in which Communities of Opportunity staff, City representatives, and residents met to identify resident or program needs, set program priorities, and agree on actions to be taken by Communities of Opportunity. While three of the four public housing nodes' community centers - or Opportunity Centers - have held informal community meetings to discuss available programs and services, as well as any other concerns that residents would like to discuss, the Director of Communities of Opportunity never attended any of these meetings, and the meetings focused primarily on delivering information, rather than gathering the information to be submitted to the Director of Communities of Opportunity.

The 2008 Plan eliminates the Communities of Opportunity resident associations proposed by the 2006 Plan to represent residents living in the four Communities of Opportunity nodes - Hunters View, Hunters Point, Sunnydale, and Alice Griffith - and gather input on services and programs. Although the Director of Communities of Opportunity stated that the San Francisco Housing Authority's tenants associations are expected to assume the functions of the resident associations, the tenants associations are largely inactive, and the San Francisco Housing Authority has no plan in place to reactivate them.

Because community participation in the resident associations and other community forums has not met expectations, Communities of Opportunity has increasingly relied on its paid community staff, including site coordinators and peer coaches, to communicate with residents. However, these staff do not have performance goals related to resident communications. Therefore, Communities of Opportunity cannot ensure that community staff are effectively reaching residents.

Despite goals for collaborating with residents on the delivery of City services, the 2008 Plan does not provide guidelines, nor does Communities of Opportunity have processes that define how (a) City departments receive resident input for planning programs and services, (b) City departments work with residents living in the Communities of Opportunity nodes to make changes to programs or services, and (c) program changes or services are communicated to the residents. Communities of Opportunity does not have a standard for coordinating or sharing information among community staff.

The Director of Communities of Opportunity's Written Response

The Director of Communities of Opportunity presented a written response to the Budget Analyst on October 2, 2008, which is attached to this management audit report beginning on page 67. According to the Director's written response, the Department agrees with 17 of the 20 recommendations, or approximately 85 percent; partially agrees with one recommendation; and disagrees with two recommendations.

• The Director of Communities of Opportunity disagrees with Recommendation 4.1, "In order to refine the Communities of Opportunity's focus and improve its accountability, the Directors of Community of Opportunity should: Establish a single set of goals and align all work to those goals." Communities of Opportunity explains its disagreement as follows: "When you are working with meta-indicators such as poverty and are working across a diverse set of interventions in every field that touches a family's life a specific causal relationship between any one action and the overall impact is impossible to define – just as the City holds itself accountable for the overall outcomes for our families but does not attempt to create a single framework that connects every effort of every department into a model that shows cause and effect linkages throughout."
  
  As noted on page 51 of the management audit report, because Communities of Opportunity's goals are not understood and agreed upon, it is impossible for the City, the public, Communities of Opportunity's partners, or Communities of Opportunity's clients to know how it is progressing against its goals. From a resource perspective, it is impossible to determine whether fiscal and staff resources are being used efficiently. While Communities of Opportunity disagrees with the Budget Analyst's recommendation of establishing a single set of goals and aligning all work to those goals, Communities of Opportunity effectively does just this in the table on pages 10 and 11 of its response: It demonstrates a hierarchy of goals, including the End Goals which, in their semiannual reports, are aligned to strategies and targets. This alignment, however, should not necessarily be regarded as an inadvertent agreement with the entirety or spirit of the Budget Analyst's recommendation, as doing so requires that Communities of Opportunity declare a single guiding set of goals and affirm the relationship of its work to those goals.
  
  
• Communities of Opportunity partially agrees with Recommendation 4.2, "In order to refine the Communities of Opportunity's focus and improve its accountability, the Directors of Community of Opportunity should: Refine and expand the End Goal Matrix; align the Matrix to the Dashboard." Communities of Opportunity explains its partial agreement as follows: "(A)s noted above, we do not feel that it is possible or necessary to tie each strand of the Matrix directly to the dashboard. COO believes it must be accountable for both – the specific, measurable outcomes of the Matrix and an overall view of conditions for families in the neighborhoods – but does not believe the two must tie together in a linear fashion. As we refine our data tracking and sharing efforts stronger correlations between the two will be possible and we will update our measures and dashboard accordingly."
  
  As noted on page 51 of the management audit report, part of the City's investment in Communities of Opportunity was based on developing successful anti-poverty strategies that can be applied elsewhere in the City. As noted on page 52 of the management audit report, Communities of Opportunity needs to bridge the Matrix and the Dashboard if it is going to show how incremental achievements relate to overall goals. Therefore, the Matrix, which reports incremental achievement, needs to connect to the Dashboard, which reports progress toward overall goals. The last sentence of Communities of Opportunity's partial agreement explanation concedes this desire to bridge reporting tools.
  
  
• The Director of Communities of Opportunity disagrees with Recommendation 5.2 that states that "the Director of Communities of Opportunity should work with the San Francisco Housing Authority to reactivate the tenants association by creating a plan with (a) guidelines to reactive a tenants association within a specific community, the participants and their roles, and (c) a timeline with specific outcomes." The Director states in the written response, "While we agree with the substance of the recommendation, this is a responsibility that lies clearly with the SF Housing Authority. COO will provide input and support as requested but tenant associations are a formal mechanism of Housing Authorities nationwide."

The Budget Analyst notes that, although the Housing Authority is responsible for reactivating the tenants associations, the Director of Communities of Opportunity has indicated that Housing Authority tenants associations will replace the role of Communities of Opportunity resident associations (see page 57 of the report). As discussed on page 57 of the report, although the 2008 Plan does not include any role for the Communities of Opportunity resident associations, according to the interviews of community leaders and resident association presidents, the resident associations provided an effective vehicle to share information between residents, community leaders, and Communities of Opportunity. Because the Director of Communities of Opportunity indicates that the Housing Authority tenants associations will replace the role of the Communities of Opportunity residents associations, the Budget Analyst continues to recommend that the Director of the Communities of Opportunity work with the Housing Authority to reactivate the tenants associations, including creating a plan to reactivate the tenants associations.

Summary

In summary, although Communities of Opportunity has a five-year goal beginning in 2006 to move 50 percent of Communities of Opportunity families into fiscal stability by 2011, with less than three years to meet these 2011 goals, most of the Communities of Opportunity's initiatives are still in the early planning stages. Also, from a resource perspective, it is impossible to determine whether the Communities of Opportunity's fiscal and staff resources are being used efficiently. The Budget Analyst notes that without a strong, concerted City effort, which has been lacking in the first two years, Communities of Opportunity will not achieve its 2011 goals.

We would like to thank the staff of Communities of Opportunity, the Human Services Agency, the Departments of Children, Youth and Their Families, Public Health, Adult Probation, Juvenile Probation, and Economic and Workforce Development, and various representatives from other City departments, private foundations, and community organizations for their cooperation and assistance throughout this management audit.

Respectfully submitted,

Harvey M. Rose
Budget Analyst

cc: Supervisor Alioto-Pier
Supervisor Ammiano
Supervisor Chu
Supervisor Daly
Supervisor Dufty
Supervisor Elsbernd
Supervisor Maxwell
Supervisor McGoldrick
Supervisor Mirkarimi
Supervisor Sandoval
Mayor Newsom
Clerk of the Board
Cheryl Adams
Controller
Nani Coloretti
Chief Adult Probation Officer
Director, Communities of Opportunity
Director, Department of Children, Youth, and their Families
Executive Director, Housing Authority
Executive Director, Human Services Agency
Director, Economic and Workforce Development
Chief Juvenile Probation Office
Director, Mayor's Office of Community Investment
Director, Mayor's Office of Housing
Executive Director, Redevelopment Agency