Council voted 3-2 to approve $16,200 in sustaining grants Aug. 4 after a debate over the Town’s oversight of rental assistance funding, rejecting a $3,000 request from the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition.
The same vote cut annual funding for Counseling and Support Services for Youth (CASSY) from $10,000 to $5,000 and returned the remaining unallocated grant funds to the Town’s general fund.
Mayor Rob Moore, Vice Mayor Maria Ristow and Councilmember Rob Rennie voted in support of the motion; Councilmembers Mary Badame and Matthew Hudes voted against.
The Town currently has three programs that provide rental assistance. Under the sustaining grant funding, the Town provides $20,000 to LGARC, which works with St. Vincent de Paul and allocates $10,000 to the organization for its own rental assistance program. West Valley Community Services separately provides rental, and other, emergency assistance through a Town contract outside of the sustaining grant program.
Los Gatos Finance Commissioner Phil Koen individually filed a memorandum, stating the Town should delay the rental-assistance grants until his commission reviews the program Aug. 10. Koen questioned whether Los Gatos had adequate financial controls and whether having multiple organizations provide overlapping assistance was the most efficient structure.
“While I appreciate the interest of the Finance Commission in developing greater controls on the money we provide to community-based nonprofits, I am much more interested in ensuring this money gets out to these nonprofits to do important work in the community in a timely fashion,” Moore said.
Moore also pointed out that this concern was coming from only one finance commissioner.
Badame and Hudes advocated for a substitute motion—which was ultimately denied 3-2—to continue discussion on fund allocation until the first Council meeting in September, voicing concerns about the oversight the Town should impose on the grant recipients. “I’m not comfortable wheeling and dealing on the dais at 10pm…I think this needs to be reviewed by our Finance Commission,” Badame said. “That is why we have a Finance Commission, and I think this is just getting out of hand. I, quite frankly, just prefer that one organization takes care of our rental assistance.”
Council allotted an additional $20,000 to the sustaining grants program in early June. Four proposals requesting these new funds were submitted and totaled $19,200. St. Vincent de Paul requested $1,200 for towel and laundry vouchers, as well as $5,000 for emergency rental assistance. Live Oak Nutrition Center requested $10,000 for senior-center programming. All three proposals were approved. LGARC’s request for an additional $3,000 was rejected.
“We wanted something very simple which was rental assistance; and now it’s become storage unit rental, security deposits—on and on and on,” Rennie said. “And, if there’s any question at all about controls, I think we’re getting into too many things that will make control even harder.”
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LGARC said the additional supplement funds would contribute to the rental of storage units for individuals to retain their belongings while between housing, security deposits and application fees, and low-cost hotel stays if a hotel voucher or shelter can’t be secured. Rennie called LGARC’s request a “scope creep,” and ultimately put forward the motion that passed, denying the $3,000 to the coalition.
Hudes and Badame both questioned whether the Town had sufficient oversight of rental-assistance funds. Library Director Ryan Baker, who oversees the supplemental grant funding, pointed to LGARC’s accounting of its previous spending.
Baker called LGARC’s records “a good example of reporting” and said he may use this as a template for other grant recipients.
“I think it’s really important that we are not overly onerous…I am not interested at all in going through an auditing of a bunch of small nonprofits that serve the Los Gatos community,” Moore said. “I think that is totally antithetical to the purpose of this.”
Ristow added, “For this amount of money, that is the right amount of levers.”
Under the same motion, Council also reduced CASSY funding to $5,000.
CASSY has received $10,000 yearly with sustaining grant funds. Municipal grants help the nonprofit close the funding gap they face each year and support therapist salaries, CASSY Development Manager Amy Gibson said.
During the 2025-26 school year, CASSY stopped providing services directly at Los Gatos High School. The school brought its mental health program in-house and hired a CASSY therapist.
“While CASSY is no longer at the Town’s anchor high school, CASSY remains committed to serving its Los Gatos residents by continuing its over-a-decade partnership at Leigh and Westmont high schools, where the need is great and the budgets are limited,” Mary Gloner, CASSY’s interim executive director, said.
CASSY served 27 residents this year, just under half of the number of residents it served in its final year at LGHS, Gibson said. Ristow introduced that proportional rationale, and said if CASSY was serving roughly half as many residents, its grant should fall from $10,000 to $5,000.
