Travis County Commissioners Court
March 3, 2009,
Item 20
20.receive notification of additional community block development grant dollars awarded to the county through the american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 and take appropriate action.
that we have been been calling the stimulus act.
of 2009.
and take appropriate action.
>> good afternoon, christie moffat, Travis County health and human services.
through the internet and on h.u.d.'s website there is an award in h.r.
1, the american recovery and reinvestment act, h.u.d.
was allocated one billion dollars for cdbg.
and so as a result of that, on Wednesday the 25th of February, h.u.d.
posted on their website the allocation amounts through the formula for each of the entitlement communities that received cdbg money in program year 2008.
as a result of that we are anticipating to receive $226,300.
by the statute, h.u.d.
has 30 days to provide guidance on the implementation of those funds.
we do expect that we will be able to spends those things on cdbg related items.
what we don't know is the administrative rate that we'll be allowed to draw down as well as whether or not we will be able to put money towards public services.
we do know that projects are supposed to be prioritized that -- where funds can be committed in 120 days.
and so that will -- that will obviously be a large consideration for the court as we provide information to you.
so should the court choose to accept this money, just a couple of notes that we will have to put any of our action plans and information on the projects on the website that -- that is for anyone to go and look and see how the money is being spent for transparency and accountability.
we will have to begin that reporting on June 10th.
and then -- then at the end of every quarter, 10 days after the end of every quarter that website will have to be updated.
the other thing in terms of transparency is that our single audit will have to be posted and provided, there will be a link through the federal clearinghouse where people will very readily be able to access that information.
should we contract or choose a subrecipient to spend any of that money, their information will always have to be included in that website.
>> so our intent today is to provide the court notice that -- that these dollars are potentially forthcoming.
without the h.u.d.
rules and we know how -- how specific the h.u.d.
rules can be sometimes is -- it is not within staff's ability today to tell you exactly what you would be able to allocate those dollars for.
but we would want you to be aware that the county is slated to receive these dollars, that staff will begin looking at what projects maybe we've had in our cdbg process.
as you know, we have public hearings annually.
there are projects that have come forward that you may want to consider when it comes time to look at this.
we also need to look at what projects would be able to be implemented within the time frame.
certainly much of what has been consistent about the stimulus money has been the -- the time period in which jurisdictions will have to get this money moving.
and so we will be looking at potential projects with an eye toward which projects we would be able to accomplish on or get started within the designated time.
>> what is the designated time frame.
>> once we receive the grant award, we have 120 days to commit the funds.
>> commit them.
>> so commitment --
>> draw down --
>> [indiscernible] the applicable as we received other cdbg funds, would the
>> [indiscernible] be the same or different.
>> that is something that we don't know yet.
we don't know if those dollars would be added into our timeliness with our existing dollars or if we would have a different timeliness ratio with these new dollars.
>> yesterday you answered a lot of questions for me, sherri, but that was one of them that I forgot.
>> yeah, right.
>> yeah.
>> [multiple voices]
>> asking it now.
>> I wish we knew.
>> yeah.
>> [multiple voices]
>> I really wish we knew.
>> right now they are making some guesses, we know that we have to -- we have to account for that many separately, so more than likely it will come under a different grant agreement.
we will probably use the same system that we currently use now to draw down the funds and to be honest with you, I'm not really sure how we would do that without that money being included in our timeliness ratio.
so potentially.
and if they choose photo do that, then they may create some other secondary system.
we're not really sure and they are still working out those details.
now, I will be -- I will be in -- in washington d.c.
this weekend and we will be hearing from h.u.d.
for the legislative conference, so I'm hoping that we'll have some more information.
but at this point in time their attorneys are still trying to look through the regulations because of the discussion about creating jobs and maintaining jobs, cdbg already has mechanisms to count those kinds of things, so we don't know how they're going to include that information on top of say something like an infrastructure project, so it just depends on how they end up interpreting it.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> how as far as the transparency requirement, what kind of postings are we currently doing for cdbg distributions?
>> what we have right now is on the Travis County website, we have a cdbg paining and so you can just put www.co.travis.us/cdbg.
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>> ishhsworkingwithother depar
>> ishhsworkingwithotherdepar tmentsiunderstandtangential working with other departments, including p.b.o.
about -- about an increased transparency elements inside budgeting and -- and grant distribution?
>> well, we -- we notify internal departments much -- I think we send out documents when we are in the public hearing process to -- to all departments to let them know about the cdbg process.
and what the -- what the requirements would be and if they have any projects that they think might qualify.
so internal departments do receive a packet from us via e-mail each year when we are in the public hearing process.
>> okay.
>> > move that we receive the money.
>> second.
>> and start looking around for -- for -- on our lists of potential cdbg projects, trying to figure out ones that we have given priority status already in that we think we can complete in a timely manner.
>> right.
>> sure, timely.
>> make sure we give that a little bit more attention I guess.
>> timely.
>> I never thought it would take this long for us to spend some of that initially, but the experience was lacking.
>> yeah, I have to say in hindsight what we could have done differently was hire consultant.
i never would have anticipated what all you have to know to be able to buy some land to build some houses on.
it's truly been an experience for me.
i'm glad that I had to learn all of it.
it's just been painful in terms of our timeliness factor and, you know, so I think we understand better now about when to engage a consultant and when not.
traditionally that is what people do when they do housing type of projects.
i feel more comfortable that we will know better what to use, what tools to help us be more responsive to spending the money.
>> if you are thinking about moving on, consultant friends of mine are out of work
>> [laughter] you belong here at Travis County.
>> yes, sir, I agree, whole heartedly.
>> I will put a ditto on that.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you, much,
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2:17 PM