SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Money for youth services is on the ballot in Sacramento this year, and voters will decide whether to create a Sacramento Children’s Fund.
If passed, Measure L would amend the city charter to establish - and allocate money in the city budget for - the Sacramento Children’s Fund. It would also create a commission to provide oversight. The money could only be spent on youth services, including after-school programs, mental health and wellness services, violence prevention and intervention, early childhood education and youth workforce development. Measure L is not a tax increase; cannabis business operations tax revenue would comprise the bulk of the Sacramento Children’s Fund.
A ‘no’ on Measure L would reject the proposal to create a Sacramento Children’s Fund.
Q: Isn’t the city already paying for youth services?
A: Yes—millions of dollars. Both those for and against Measure L agree—funding youth services with taxpayer dollars is an important investment.
However, those against Measure L say they don’t think it’s something that needs its own protected fund, calling the measure ‘Ballot Box Budgeting.’ They call the proposed Sacramento Children’s Fund a “lock box”—and worry it would take away flexibility for spending those dollars on other priorities, like public safety, homelessness and climate change.
Those in favor of Measure L say more investment is needed in Sacramento’s underserved youth and that creating a protected fund whose dollars could only be spent on youth services would help guarantee that investment. They point out Measure L is not a tax increase. Rather, it is a requirement – if passed - that a certain amount of the city budget be spent on youth services every year.
In fact, the bulk of the money in the Sacramento Children’s Fund would come from cannabis tax revenue. Measure L would require at least 40% of projected cannabis business operations tax revenue for the next fiscal year go into the fund.
In a statement opposing Measure L, Sacramento City Councilmember Jeff Harris and former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo wrote, “it’s déjà vu all over again. This measure has failed twice as Measure Y and Measure G. It failed for good reason- ballot box budgeting is fiscally irresponsible, and this measure is an attempt to fund nonprofit organizations with tax dollars collected to provide essential city services…Spending on youth is important and we already do a lot of it,” adding they worry creating a “lock box” for youth funding could lead to “cuts or no further enhancements” in other areas also important to taxpayers, like homelessness, climate change, public safety and clean mobility.
Those in favor of Measure L say it would expand “programs supporting our most vulnerable kids—the homeless, foster children, and low-income students—without increasing taxes…YES on L does not raise taxes. It simply allocates a portion of the City’s existing budget to support services for homeless kids, foster children and youth who need help—increasing government accountability by requiring a greater, guaranteed investment in Sacramento’s most vulnerable population.”
Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang co-authored the statement in favor of Measure L, along with American Academy of Pediatrics California Chapter 1 Board Member Dr. Lena van der List, Sacramento City Unified Schools elementary teacher and a 2023 Sacramento County Teacher of the Year Dr. Debi Lawson-Perez, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 552 President Trevor Jamison and Sac Youth Alliance Director of Youth Programs Ana Taukolo.
You can read the statement in favor of Measure L HERE and proponents’ response to those against in HERE. Others in favor of Measure L include Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Youth Mental Health Therapist Brinn Langdale.
Read the statement in opposition to Measure L HERE and opponents’ response to those in favor HERE. Others opposed to Measure L include former Sacramento Mayor Jimmie Yee and former Director of Sacramento Libraries Rivkah Sass.
Q: WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DOES YOUTH FUNDING HAVE?
ABC10 has been following several youth organizations over the course of the past year, irrespective of Measure L. We wanted to pull back the curtain and show how these youth organizations are making an impact in young people’s lives.
Paris Dye leads Impact Sac, a local non-profit that supports and empowers youth.
“We are packing up bags for our home visits today, so we can go visit some of our Sacramento teens and drop stuff off for them,” she said earlier this year while preparing for ‘Prize Patrol’ at Impact Sac - which is housed in office space donated by Guide Real Estate in Sacramento’s Ice Blocks District. “Coffee mugs for ‘Check Yo Vibe,’ which is our mental resilience campaign. They get a sleep mask.”
Prize Patrol started during the pandemic. Young people couldn’t get together in-person, so Impact Sac hosted virtual group events and then made individual visits—giving prizes while doing mental health check-ins.
On this particular day, the team stopped to give gifts to teen Jayde Daily.
“It made me very happy that they came and see me and did all this for me,” she told ABC10.
Impact Sac Program Director Veronica Boulus said Impact Sac offers services like mentoring and tutoring, with the goal of helping students succeed and stay safe. A grant from the City of Sacramento’s Office of Violence Prevention helped make that possible.
“We were granted $250,000 to do this work and to reach youth in the city of Sacramento, especially those who are gang-involved and who need more support than others,” Boulus said.
Back in March, Impact Sac brought teens from all over the city to Golden 1 Center, where they got a good view of the Kings Game, followed by a group photo on the court.
“It's important because it lets (kids) know that they're valuable, you know, and that we deserve these seats, too, and that they’re obtainable,’ Dye said. “Young people can sit in good seats. It's not about just getting in the Kings game. It's about experiencing it and having a memory.”
The next day and across town, two different youth organizations teamed up to host a March Madness youth basketball tournament at Dr. Ephraim Williams Family Life Center in Oak Park.
“What we wanted to do was just gather youth from different neighborhoods and provide them with an opportunity to just come and have clean fun and an outlet where they can be supervised, they can be fed and just enjoy themselves,” said Jedida Gomes.
She’s with the Greater Sacramento Urban League, one of the community organizations that partner with the Black Child Legacy Campaign.
Kenneth Duncan is founder and CEO of Ball Out Academy, which offers mentoring and free basketball programs to young people in the Sacramento area.
“We want to provide safe space for kids a few times a week to keep them off the streets, help them with their academics,” Duncan said. “But really, it's about mentorship because I know how important that is. Say your father is not in your life or your father's working a full time job. It takes all those different coaches and mentors to help build up our youth to be successful.”
High schooler Irving Cook said mentorship is important to young people “so they know there’s somebody out that's out there that cares for them, that wants them to be on the right path.”
In 2018 and 2019, Sacramento saw zero youth homicides. That wasn’t the case in the following three years. Youth leaders say to get back to zero requires the kind of in-person engagement they couldn’t do for much of the pandemic.
“That's very important to us, lowering the homicide rate and trying to shut down gang violence in Sacramento,” Duncan said.
‘We are hopeful and we know with the support that we are willing and ready to offer - not only mentoring but even employment, right? Placing them in spaces that are productive, where they're learning trades. And so then the gang involvement automatically decreases,” Gomes said. “We're excited to start offering new things and really plug them into the things that we were - are - already offering but the pandemic made difficult to access.”
Her message to decision-makers? Keep investing in youth.
“Pay attention to the work that is being done, pay attention to the outcomes that are coming and invest in those organizations that are doing the work so that they can continue it,” Gomes said. “I think that considerable change doesn't happen immediately, and so we need to consistently be available for these families over time. And with limited funding or even sporadic funding, that's not really possible.”
Chet Hewitt leads the Sierra Health Foundation and the Center at Sierra Health Foundation, which manages the Black Child Legacy Campaign.
He says supporting youth services benefits everybody.
“A great city takes care of its children. I don't see these as expenses. These are investments in our future,” Hewitt said. “We provide these opportunities to young people because we know that - long term - not only do they benefit themselves and their families, they do benefit our region as well - economically, socially and civically - so it's more than sports. It's more than games. It really is around young people and development.”
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