PFM Consulting Group is a far more nefarious entity than what I thought it was upon first look. This consulting group has infilitrated Harris County’s local government from top to bottom. PFM was welcomed in by the Democrats after they took control of our Commissioners Court in 2019. After digging through Commissioners Court video archives, I found that the first mention of PFM was by the DNC placeholder Lina Hidalgo on December of 2019. Though, it was Commissioner Rodney Ellis who was the one to bring forth the PFM contract in October 29th, 2019. PFM also has been integral in working with Houston METRO, Houston Community College, and The City of Houston in which they created the “10-year plan”.
When I received the contracts for PFM, it became blatantly obvious that this Consulting Group is working in lockstep with Obama and the Arnolds. This group has been an integral partner in leading the National Resource Network, an Obama White House initiative, which received 10 million in federal funding, and another 4 million in grants from Arnold Ventures. Not only that, The National Resource Network is partners with PFM, the Urban Institute, HR&A. The Urban Institute has also received tens of millions from none other than Arnold Ventures.
It seems as though all this data-driven research and reorganization that PFM is doing in our county, is solely to benefit a handful of people, who want to create “transformative changes” to our local government. The National Resource Network has been playing a LARGE part in the whole “equitable” push that we’ve been hearing a whole lot of since COVID ravaged our County and City. It seems like these organizations saw this as an opportunity to take this devastation, and reshape our local government in their “equitable” vision.
On May 19, 2020 Commissioner Rodney Ellis began with a push of an “equitable way that the COVID financials we be allocated to the County’s constituents” which started off with a $30 million initiative from the Greater Houston Community Foundation. During this specific Commissioners Court session, there seemed to be a theme that Ellis and the VP, Renee Wizig-Barrios were pushing, in which the charitable funds should solely be given out in a “equitable way, based on social vulnerability”. However, what seemed to be so alarming is, that COVID basically affected every single person— so why the push for “equity” so early on in the pandemic? It’s almost as if these specific players had an alternate agenda.
Apparently this “equitable” approach, wasn’t equitable at all. There’s a lot of questions surrounding the $30 million which was handed over to Renee Wizig-Barrios and the extreme lack of transparency of where these funds ended up. The County Commissioners promised they would release the info, but to this day, people still do not know where these funds ended up.
HOUSTON – For months, Channel 2 Investigates has been keeping tabs on a $30 million Harris County COVID-19 Relief Fund. The money was distributed in two phases, but the information on exactly who got the money, and exactly how much, has not been as easy to come by.
According to data from Harris County, more than 500,000 people applied for relief funds. The need was so great that only a small fraction of the applicants were approved for the emergency assistance.
Ward says she was on the phone “all day long,” when she applied for Harris County COVID-19 relief funds. But in the end, she lost, passed over for a $1,200 hand-up.
The truth of why she didn’t get help, really may not be that sinister. More than half a million people applied for $1,200-$1,500. However, just over 20,000 were approved. That’s only about 4%.
“Yes it’s a small number,” said Renee Wizig-Barrios with the Greater Houston Community. “We wish we could help every single person that needed help,” she added.
The county hired the Greater Houston Community Foundation to administer the COVID-19 Relief Fund program and paid the foundation $1.5 million. Those were additional funds, separate from the $30 million.
As for the $30 million, we wanted to know more about where specifically the money went.
“What we’re responsible for sharing is… the basic demographics of who received (the funds),” said Wizig-Barrios.
That part is already public. That data was handed over to the firm January Advisors and they were tasked with making an interactive dashboard.
The online dashboard maps the demographics of who applied and the social vulnerability of the community, which were all factors in the decision making process.
So I have to ask, if there still has been no transparency to where these funds have gone… Could this be another Obama-era slush fund gimmick?
