Analysis: Harvard’s Flexible Fund Slow to Get Off the Ground

UPDATED: April 7, 2016, at 12:30 p.m.

From now until 2023, Allston residents will have a difficult decision to make: how to best spend $5.35 million of Harvard’s money.

Some want to spend it on the refurbishment of a rundown amphitheatre, others on the renovation of a nearby library, and still others on the installation of neighborhood security cameras. As they decide, Allstonians will deal with the activity, traffic, and noise endemic to construction sites as Harvard proceeds with its Allston developments, many of which are already underway.

In a first for its community relations, Harvard allocated the $5.35 million, termed a “flexible fund,” for unspecified public improvements in the Allston neighborhood as part of a $43 million community benefits package detailed in its institutional master plan for the neighborhood. Boston College’s $2.5 million “Neighborhood Improvement Fund,” created around the same time, served as inspiration for Harvard.

While BC, with only a few months head start, has already finished its first round of grants, Harvard’s allocation process has only just begun. In late February, the Flexible Fund Executive Committee—comprising Allston residents and Boston officials—heard the very first proposals for how to best distribute the $5.35 million.

Looking to its more efficient counterpart at BC, the flexible fund committee faces a neighborhood-wide lack of knowledge as the first deadline for grant applications approaches.

DECIDING NOT TO DECIDE

The concept of a flexible fund emerged from discussions between Harvard representatives, Boston officials, and Allstonians in the fall of 2013, in what Boston Redevelopment Authority senior project manager Gerald Autler termed the “home stretch” leading to the BRA’s approval of Harvard’s master plan and associated community benefits package. The BRA is Boston’s urban planning agency.

According to Autler, Harvard representatives initially proposed a number of concrete projects to improve the Allston neighborhood, but local residents were unenthusiastic. Many felt that the items Harvard put forward were not “the most important public realm improvements,” Autler said.

Harvard sidestepped the disagreements by making the decision to “not make the decision,” he added, describing the flexible fund.

“The idea of the physical flexible fund was to provide some level of funding that community could help direct to projects that are important to them,” Kevin Casey, Harvard’s associate vice president for public affairs and communications, said of the grant money.

At first, Harvard planned to allot only $2 million to the flexible fund, but the figure rose to $5.35 million after further negotiation with Allstonians and city officials. Autler cited “the quality of the programs that we wanted to provide” as the reason for the increase. After the signing of the cooperation agreement, he added, the number is now set in stone and cannot be changed.

The BRA officially approved Harvard’s Allston plans in October 2013. A little more than a year later, the University signed a cooperation agreement with the City of Boston outlining Harvard’s specific community benefits obligations, including the flexible fund.

NOT FROM SCRATCH

The notion of a flexible fund—a lump sum of money not dedicated in advance to specific projects—is unprecedented in the history of Harvard’s community relations. Previous agreements included clear commitments, Autler said. Harvard, however, cannot take full credit for the concept.

The structure of Harvard’s flexible fund draws heavily from that of BC’s $2.5 million Neighborhood Improvement Fund for the Allston-Brighton area, finalized in August 2014 as part of BC’s community benefits package for its own 10-year master plan.

“We didn’t necessarily create it from scratch, we utilized the BC model,” Jim Montgomery, a member of the Harvard-Allston Task Force who also sits on the executive committee, said of the flexible fund. “They have some documents that we are utilizing… as a guideline to go from,” he added.

The Harvard and BC funds are similar in many ways. Both are specifically intended for improvements in public property, and both allocate grant money based on publicly available applications. Harvard, however, has an independent committee dedicated to managing its flexible fund, while BC assigned the responsibility for the Neighborhood Improvement Fund to its already existing BC Allston-Brighton task force—a body equivalent to Harvard’s task force.

“We didn’t think it was necessary to add another layer to it,” Jeanne Levesque, the director of governmental relations at BC, said. “[The task force members] are busy people, they have jobs, they have enough to do to get to these meetings.”

Levesque also cited “time-efficiency” as an argument against creating a separate, neighborhood improvement fund-specific committee. The BC task force, composed entirely of volunteers, meets once a month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Casey described the decision to create the flexible fund committee as a judgment “that the task force made itself” and not a Harvard choice. He added that Harvard task force members already have a prohibitively “heavy burden” in terms of meetings they have to attend.

“They can’t manage every program individually,” he said.

The Harvard task force meets roughly every two months at unfixed times, considerably less often than its BC counterpart. In 2014 and 2015 combined, the task force met a total of 10 times.

Though BC’s NIF received final approval just three months before Harvard’s flexible fund, BC has already completed the first round of grant applications and is now embarking on its second. Of the eight proposals submitted, BC—in conjunction with the BC task force and the BRA—approved six.

Harvard officially began the first cycle of grant applications on March 1, when the BRA posted an online application form for the flexible fund. Final applications are due in to Autler’s office or the Harvard Ed Portal on Western Avenue by May 2.

THE SAME GOAL

Despite the flexible fund’s potential to improve their neighborhood, few locals say they are aware of the fund or the first impending grant cycle.

“I don’t know that a lot of people know about it, quite honestly,” longtime Allston resident Paul “Chip” Alford said. “I think the people… that are aware of the meetings and attend the meetings [know about it].”

John A. Bruno, the interim chair of the Harvard-Allston task force, agreed. He said he believed the BRA and Harvard have so far made the fund allocation process “transparent,” ensuring that residents of Allston and Brighton have the opportunity to understand “what flexible spending money is.”

He added, however, that not many will likely take advantage of this opportunity.

“Whether or not the community is dependent on a few to spread the message of what’s going on, I don’t know, that’s usually the case,” he said. “I’m fine with that, that’s why we have a task force, that’s why we have a flexible spending committee.”

In an attempt to increase the neighborhood’s awareness of the flexible fund, the BRA recently hosted a public information session for the flexible fund at a community center in Brighton. At the meeting, Autler outlined the application process in detail before answering attendees’ questions.

Roughly 15 people went to the information session, according to Allston resident Ed A. Kotomori, most of them hailing from Allston or Brighton. Though Autler described the overall attendance as “sparse,” Kotomori said he thought “there was a lot of people from the community” there.

“There was actually more people there from different organizations, so apparently the communication has gotten out there,” Kotomori said. “Just judging from the questions they asked, I think they thought [the flexible fund] was a positive thing.”

Flexible fund committee member Jim Montgomery said the money could serve as a unifying force between Harvard affiliates, BRA officials, and locals.

“At the end of the day, we all have the same goal and that is to improve Allston,” he said. “The flex fund is a part of that larger picture, of what we can all do to improve the neighborhood.”

—Staff writer Hannah Natanson can be reached at hannah.natanson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hannah_natanson.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 7, 2016

A previous version of this article indicated that Boston College's Allston-Brighton taskforce meets once a month from 8-10 p.m. In fact, they meet at 6:30-8:30 p.m.