And what were you doing on grants?

If by chance you were watching the Worcester School Committee on Thursday night, at about two hours in (2:14 or so), you saw that I made a motion to hold the grants on which we were asked to vote acceptance. In total, it was about $400K in grants that administration had asked that we vote to accept.
Why?
My motion specifically was to hold the grants pending a recommended allocation from the administration for the School Committee to pass, which the Committee had not received.
In other words, all we had was "please say yes to X amount of money" with no "and please vote to spend it here, here, and here."
And the allocation authority belongs to the School Committee, within cost centers.

Now, while I am somewhat tetchy about whose authority belongs to whom (in part because nature and school districts abhor a vacuum), and this is part of the Ch. 71, sec. 37 authority of school committees,  that isn't why I made the motion I did.
Spending money on things makes commitments and sets priorities:

• Grants may be used to hire staff, who we may need to either keep on or let go when the grant runs out. 
• Grants may be used for professional development, which develop skills and understandings which may be in line with goals or not. 
• Grants may be used to purchase equipment or materials, which may need further funding for maintenance or replacement.
• ...and so forth. 

Grants decide things, and the School Committee needs to know what is being decided in order to do its job effectively.
The Worcester School Committee hasn't been getting allocation recommendations with their grants for, the mayor noted, four years. It had been getting such recommendations before. So this isn't a new request; it's going back to previous practice, allowing for greater transparency and accountability around district spending and priority setting.
My motion failed, 5-2, but the Mayor's motion, to have that allocation information for these grants at the next meeting and for all grants going forward at the time of the vote, passed unanimously, as did my subsequent motions to have grants added to the quarterly reports reviewed in subcommittee and to receive the final reports for all grants going back five years (don't fret: these already exist, as they're filed with the state).
This is really a basic budgeting best practice, and I'm relieved we'll have it going forward. Worcester spends a lot of money in grants, and we need to know where it is going.