JEFFERSON CITY • In front of a W.E.B. DuBois poster he’s had since college, Marvin Teer Jr. took a phone call from the Rockwood School District.
The caller asked if Teer could speak to about 30 African-American kids at Crestview Middle School. The students were struggling with how to cope after Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer.
It’s exactly the kind of call Teer hoped for after being named deputy director and general counsel for the new Office of Community Engagement — and perfectly in line with the poster’s quote: “There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.â€
In September, Gov. Jay Nixon used an executive order to create the office, tasked with facilitating “meaningful communication†between Missourians and state and local governments. He appointed former state Sen. Maida Coleman to head the office, and Teer, a former St. Louis municipal judge, as second in command. The office has two other employees.
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“This is exactly the kind of proactive difference I’ve wanted to make since hanging that poster on my wall in college,†Teer said.
But what the office has done in the three months since it was created — and how much it has cost the state — has become a bipartisan sticking point for Missouri lawmakers, who say the governor never outlined the office’s task or cost to them.
The office was given a budget of $350,000 to last until June 30. The bulk of the money pays salaries for Coleman, who makes $120,000 a year, and Teer, who makes $110,000.
To fund Nixon’s creation, money was siphoned from 12 state agencies, many of which the governor is already withholding money from.
The largest chunk, about $137,000, comes from the Department of Social Services, which Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, sees as a potential problem.
“I do think we’ll have to go back and look at the lines in each agency’s budget where (Nixon) took money and see what it was initially intended for,†Schaefer said.
RESULTS LISTED
“I’m excited about this work,†Coleman said last week in between meetings and phone calls. “Too often, we’re given a chance to make a real change and we hesitate. I do not intend to hesitate.â€
Early results suggest her efforts are paying off. About a month after the office was launched, Nixon announced the creation of 3,500 summer jobs for low-income youths, 2,000 in the St. Louis area and 1,500 in Kansas City. The governor said Coleman would lead the effort, an expansion of a much smaller jobs program that last year funded 100 jobs in each of the two cities.
To pay for the expansion, the state expects to spend $10.6 million, taken from federal grants and welfare funds such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Each job will be subsidized by the state at $8 an hour for up to 30 hours a week.
Nixon said the improving economy led to an increase in money available through the federal needy families program. And Rebecca Woelfel, spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, said the move would not hurt others seeking assistance through that federal program, which can be used for services for youths in families with incomes no more than 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
Coleman calls this step a win for the office, saying a major part of her office’s mission is to create employment opportunities and lift people out of poverty.
The new Office of Community Engagement also helped interview applicants and made recommendations for , Coleman said. Her office will serve as a sponsor of a north St. Louis County job fair in January.
Big sheets of paper adorn the wall of the office conference room, showing more projects are in the works.
For example, Teer is working with the St. Louis Cardinals to bring its Redbird Rookies program, a free baseball league for kids, to North County. Teer, who played baseball as a kid, said the sport taught him important life lessons. He has found a field near Ferguson and hopes to secure mentors, such as firefighters and law enforcement.
The office also connects organizations with the right people or data to help with efforts in Ferguson and beyond, Coleman said. Currently, the office is compiling Labor Department data to aid efforts by the United Way of Greater St. Louis to support workers displaced since the grand jury decision not to indict Wilson in Brown’s death, said Ashley Gammon, organization spokeswoman.
“United Way anticipates continuing our relationship with the Office of Community Engagement to promote the healing of our region,†Gammon said in a statement.
But House Speaker-elect John Diehl, R-Town and Country, is not convinced there have been results.
“I have a lot of questions about (the office) that have never been explained,†Diehl said. “If it’s a good idea, (Nixon) should have come to the General Assembly and asked to establish it.â€
QUESTIONABLE FUNDING
Sen. Jamilah Nasheed may be a Democrat, but she’s far from happy about the funding Nixon, also a Democrat, used for the office. She calls it “robbing Peter to pay Paul.â€
Using money from departments already charged with helping people who are hurting physically or financially, Nasheed said, is “setting those people back who need (help) most.â€
For example, $52,657 from the Department of Mental Health and $137,228 from the Department of Social Services was funneled into the office’s budget for the remainder of the fiscal year. Money from 10 other departments was put into the $350,000 pot as well.
Many of these departments saw thousands of dollars slashed by Nixon when he cut $1.1 billion from the fiscal year 2015 budget.
But spokeswomen for the Mental Health and Social Services departments said the relatively small amounts diverted to the Office of Community Engagement will have no effect on services. Both said their departments are happy to assist the new office in carrying out its mission.
“People with mental illness are at a greater risk of living in poverty or becoming homeless,†said Debra Walker, Department of Mental Health spokeswoman. “That’s why the (office’s) efforts to address issues like poverty are vitally important to our work here.â€
There’s a good chance lawmakers won’t see it that way, especially after some called the office a political stunt.
“I think it’s very questionable, bordering on unbelievable, that (Nixon) would use taxpayer dollars to try to buy political support because of his failures in Ferguson,†Diehl said. The Department of Social Services “is not a place to arbitrarily take money from to fund personal or politically expedient slush funds,†he added.
Lawmakers plan to continue holding committee hearings during the 2015 session, which begins Jan. 7, to investigate issues related to Nixon’s handling of events in Ferguson. The first committee hearing was Thursday.
“You have a governor who’s been in politics for (decades), you don’t need a commission, study or community engagement office to tell you what you should already know,†Nasheed said.
This, Schaefer said, points to the governor’s poor relationship with African-Americans in St. Louis.
“On its face, this is an attempt to appear that he does have a better relationship†with black people, he said.
Yet Coleman, who is black, said at least the governor is doing something.
“This office shows that Nixon is committed to the state and the people of St. Louis,†Coleman said. “He created it to address the issues and concerns people have.â€
