ROCKVILLE, Md. — It was supposed to be an update on how things were progressing for Montgomery County programs designed to keep kids out of gangs and help those who had become involved escape the influence.
Instead, the joint hearing before the county council’s Public Safety and Health and Human Services committees erupted when frustrated members expressed anger over the delays in hiring eight staff members for a program called Safe Space.
Noting that the $473,328 placed in the FY18 budget was intended to go to programs to fight escalating gang violence in the county, council members slammed DHHS Director Uma Ahluwalia. She sat before them in the hearing room.
Council member Nancy Navarro quizzed Ahluwalia on why there would be a delay in establishing the programming, since the money was in the budget.
“We spend all this time in committee sessions, evaluating what we should fund … You know, it’s just egregious. I’m sorry, it’s just absolutely egregious as far as I’m concerned,” Navarro said, referring to the delay.
Council member Craig Rice gave his colleagues and Ahluwalia a heads up before unloading his frustration, saying he may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed Monday morning.
Rice noted that police and the county state’s attorney’s office got supplemental funding of $842,000, and when the council voted to approve it, members said they also wanted to see programming aimed at prevention.
So on Monday, when DHHS officials explained that eight positions for the anti-gang programming had been “lapsed” in October and that the positions had yet to be filled, Rice was incensed. “It’s always my concern that we always have a heavy hand when it comes to enforcement, and we don’t do the other part when it comes to black and brown people.”
He told the panel he was sick and tired of those populations getting — in his words — short shrift. “It’s got to stop!” he said, his voice rising with emotion.
Rice wasn’t alone in his dismay. Council member Marc Elrich, who leads the Public Safety Committee, wondered why DHHS allowed the positions to lapse and why, if there was a problem in getting the programs up and running, the council hadn’t been alerted.
Under the current timetable, he told Ahluwalia, there would be little time to evaluate the program’s progress by the spring, when the budget process for the next fiscal year gets underway on the council.
Ahluwalia, who is well-liked and respected by the members of the council — many of whom told her that before unleashing their frustrations — told the panel that she accepted their criticism.
She said that movement on hiring and establishing the Safe Space programming in White Oak, Germantown, Montgomery Village and Wheaton should not have been allowed to lag, but she added the department has a massive workload.
“There is nothing that has had a higher priority than programming for youth … and all of you know it,” she said.
Under the current timetable, the hiring process for the Safe Space program had been closed as of Nov. 15. Training would get underway once the hires are in place, and the first of the four sites for the program should be up and running by spring.
