Travis County Commissioners Court
March 21, 2006
Item 22
Number 22 is to consider and take appropriate action on the following planning requirements for community development block grant funding from hud. Avmentd, potential projects and project direction. 22-b, recommendations from the Travis County coordinating committee. And 22-c, other related issues.
>> we're here this morning to discuss with the court the planning ashd the community development block grant initiative that we recently have been presented the opportunity to participate in. And so today is a plan for you to have an opportunity as court members to have discussion around any potential projects or staff direction that you would like to give health and human services as we continue through this process. If I might borrow a term from the judge, this is a rocket process. We have until August 15th to -- or have to submit a plan on August 15th to the federal government on how we plan to use these funds. So therefore each week that passes there will be activities that will be underway in ensuring that the community has sufficient opportunity to provide input as we plan for the expenditure of these funds. So item a refers to any direction, discussion that the court would like to have around potential projects. We included in your backup last week in your backup for last week is your backup for this week, an analysis of needs assessments that have been conducted by the community action network and we tried to group for you those needs that were identified that coincide with the requirements of the community development block grant program. So you should have kind of a side by side comparison there. We also have included for you a memo that was prepared by harvey Davis with the corporations many, many months ago when this opportunity presented itself. It was at the request of Commissioner Davis that he also did some analysis on potential projects. So those two items were provided simply for your information there. They don't include any recommendations at this point.
>> judge? At some point, and I know we're on the fast track to try to get something together in August, but I知 seeing -- and I guess my question is how can we start focusing on specific -- there's a lot of general things we have here that we're looking at, but then again, at the end of the day I think the more you have on the table, the more -- the more subject matter you have on the table, the more we may have difficulty in managing it, especially the first part of this in dealing with the amount of money that we're dealing with. What is it, $2.4 million?
>> roughly. If I may respond to that question? Commissioner, the Travis County cdbg committee that was appointed by the court does have a recommendation for an overarching policy direction and I値l be happy to discuss that at whatever point the court is ready, but also there is a citizen participation process that we will do a little commercial for in just a minute in order to hear from your constituents about what projects they would be most interested in having you consider. So those two things I think will work in tandem. If I could go on to item b, the coordinating committee for the -- that was appointed by the court has brought forward a recommendation that the court consider employing the fiscal year '07 policy -- budget policy direction as an overarching macro level policy direction for us to review projects. It certainly would not limit the court's ability to look at projects that were outside of that direction, but it would give us a preliminary direction, if you will, on what projects we should be seeking out or trying to find more information. So if you were today to agree to allow us to use those 2007 budget parameters, that would be a starting point for the projects that we would begin to review.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> it would be mental health and substance abuse and programs are -- that would affect the juvenile detention or the jail population and workforce development.
>> I agree with that. The only thing is that for me it would have a lot of meaning for precinct four to address like the lack of water, running water, lack of healthy septic tanks that the family would use. Those are things that affect their health, health and safety. And I know I致e checked with tnr and there isn't enough money even in yours, in your budget for septic tank installment or repair, and to me those are really, really basic family needs.
>> for me I want to think a little more out of the box. I don't want to just replicate what we're doing and making independent decisions as to where this Travis County government chooses to invest its dollars. I think we need to think outside the box and a few things come to my mind. I知 right with you related to the community action network. I mean, what is the point of all of these needs assessments being done in our community if we do not look at what is the landscape out there and to pick and choose in terms of which areas to invest in. And some of these things may be the exact same thing, but I think the c.a.n. Assessments are a wonderful place to start in terms of what are the gaps out there. I personally believe that like we do our corporation monies, we need to treat these cdbg dollars as those they are one-time monies, even though they can be awarded and will be awarded over multiple years, they need to be treated as one time money. So to me the most compelling projects that we have that came through the corporations, and we had like 26 of them. Harvey gave us a wonderful synopsis of everything that's happened over the last 10 years for the corporations. Where we did best is as market likes to say, rather than giving somebody a fish, you teach somebody how to fish. So to me it was a better investment of our dollars not to give $300,000 to meals on wheels and more so expanded services, but it was a fantastic investment for $300,000 to go towards the new kitchen for meals on wheels so that that investment lived on beyond that first year. And I think if you look at what we've done through the corporations, those are great places for first team, safe place, parent infant training. They've really gone for things that are one time expenditures, but build capacity beyond the one year investment. So I think looking at harvey's magic list is a good place to start of just triggering some great ideas on this. It doesn't mean that you can't still make a three-year commitment like we've done with the corporations on any baby can. We did a 500,000-dollar payout to them to help with their facility purchase. We did it over three years, so it was an oughtable way to spread out the money. But we could count on it and we ought got to a good place. The other thing that I知 looking at here is that in terms of the backup related to what is cdbg, I think we need to eliminate the word rural from our vocabulary. It may be that this money is going to rural parts of Travis County, but there are urban areas of Travis County who will also be he will eligible for this that are in the unincorporated. And we are going to see where a lot of this -- a lot of our troubles related to housing, related to challenges with drug abuse, mental abuse, etcetera, all those things are happening in our urban, unincorporated areas who are not going into any city any time soon. They're just not. And yet they are, unless I知 reading it wrong, equally eligible. This is not a rural program, correct?
>> it's a program for the unincorporated area.
>> there you go. So it can be rural, but it could actually be, and quite frankly, may more likely be in our urban part of the unincorporated because that is where we have many of these challenges related to clone I can'ts. I知 with Margaret. There ought not be another colonias. If we've not learned anything from mr. Schneider and the folks from kennedy ridge and clover place, there ought not be a colonias anywhere else in Travis County. And sometime these self help programs are self-defeating because the folks have if they had the capability to help themselves, they would have. It's beyond their means. So I just think we ought to look outside the box, look to what we've done at the different corporations as to fine examples of how we've invested our dollars and go from there. And we leave our county budget process for the kinds of yearly investments that we want to do more related to capacity issues as opposed to things that can go beyond any given year. That's just one idea.
>> and to expand more on the colonias spot. To me that's one that does not have the basic infrastructure in, water, wastewater, and then also the roads. So colonias can also happen in the western part of Travis County if we're not careful. Those things must be in. And those are very basic. So I知 real focused on that, especially -- and Travis County and central Texas is no longer rural. It is not a rural county anymore as it does not meet that definition. This whole Williamson county, hays, travis are all urban counties now, but there is an uncorporated area still where certain things happen without anybody's noticing what's happened. And those -- it's the basic infrastructure that relate to the health and safety code.
>> one other thought related to that had to do with septic tanks, as we painfully went through the new septic tank regulations, there are a lot of septic tanks that have worked just groovy for 20 years, but they're going to fail. And because of the new state regulations, they are on property that is not sized properly to put in another septic system. They're just not. And these folks are going to get caught in a situation that unless the city of Austin or somebody else comes forward and gets them proper wastewater service -- we have that up in the four seasons area. It's a huge investment and some of these areas are not well off. I知 thinking crystal brook, it used to be precinct 2, now it's precinct 1 off of dessau road. Those folks tonight have sufficient pace spais on their lots to rebuild a septic tank and there's no way any city is going to bring those folks in because they don't have any tax base. They're going to be caught in unincorporatedville for a long time and no one will care about them until somebody wants to scrape it all off and start from scratch and do something else.
>> so what does hud want from us? The purpose of this item today is for us to tell hud what?
>> the purpose of this item today is actually for staff direction. We must bring before you next week our citizen participation plan, and so the purpose is to do exactly what the court is doing, is to give staff some direction as to what your interests are. And in the issue of clone I can't -- colonias came up with the think comi, it's one of the things that came up for us to pursue as to how those projects might fit. You've done exactly what you we needed for you to do, which is to give us some direction as to what types of projects you would like us to look for. In terms of what's required of hud, we certainly need to keep them posted on our time line, and we'll be sharing that with you in just a minute.
>> all right. Hold on. In terms of putting together our citizens participation plan, have we seen the one that Williamson county, city of Austin, other entities submitted?
>> we've looked at a lot of different plans, judge, and we've also been talking with the hud staff. And the citizen participation plan that we'll talk about in just a minute is probably the -- not as complicated as some of the other pieces that we're going to be pulling together. It basically is a plan on how we're going to receive citizen participation in this process.
>> so that what hud wants.
>> yes. It's a required process, yes.
>> so we have pulled the best from the other plans that we reviewed and we're putting together a Travis County plan?
>> that's correct.
>> and in terms of potential projects and project direction, we're supposed to give hud is generally some indication of how we would use the funds if we had them?
>> that's not required early on. Certainly they want to collaborate with us on those projects that they would agree with us fit the direction of the program, but we're not required to give them a definitive list before we provide our consolidated plan.
>> okay. So the backup that you've given us, the preliminary assessment, is that supposed to describe some of the needs that we would try to meet?
>> these are needs that we will use as a tape measure against projects. As we begin to hear from the community, we will compare some of the recommendations to the needs that have been identified to the direction we've received from the court and the projects I think will be born from that discussion.
>> all right. What I知 hearing today is we should add to this list water, wastewater, other infrastructure needs.
>> yes. Number 2 on the backup.
>> are we looking at the preliminary assessment?
>> the agenda item, the agenda memo.
>> we should add that to what part of the backup? Is this backup in the mind still? Do you understand what I知 saying? Is there a list of draft potential projects and project direction?
>> no. There is a recommendation in the agenda memo from the committee after that meeting on February eighth.
>> where is that?
>> in your agenda memo dated March seventh. Page 2 about midway to the page under the budget.
>> that's just one project.
>> well, of all we've said, here's what we're saying. We put together a list of areas that we would -- are interested in, put in a list from mr. Davis's memo, what's been said by the court last week and today. Can you see what I知 saying? That's what we would put in our list of potential projects and project direction.
>> yes.
>> you're looking on page 2 of this.
>> what we're doing today is that the court would approve a motion to provide direction to the staff, to look at projects related to alleviating colonias and any other macro level projects that you would have us to look at. So it wouldn't be a specific list, it would be any direction you wanted to give in terms of -- just like you've done with the clone I colonias, just like we've done the macro level to the 2007 budget. And if there were any other macro level that you wanted to add to that so that staff could begin to look at what departments might be affected, what entities might need to be engaged to have those projects move forward.
>> the c.a.n. Community assessments in the area that absolutely follow what you all have done related to the housing issues, homelessness issues, unemployment and income disparity issues. Basically take our c.a.n. Assessments and say, anything spring to mind here in terms of really great ideas? But I知 not hearing c.a.n. Community assessments being any part of discussion groups here. And I don't agree with the one related to just taking the general parameters of the budget. It could be. But I don't want that to be one of the overriding things that we basically try to replicate what we're doing here as a budget process because I see a lot of what we do on all those issues as being yearly things based on capacity and needs as opposed to things that could live on beyond any one year. And the c.a.n. Assessments really get into we don't have enough housing, we don't have enough water and wastewater services, things that are really real things as opposed to, well, we need to -- it's a capacity thing. Am I making sense?
>> yes. And in light of your comments, Commissioner Sonleitner, your motion might be that staff would look at the c.a.n. Assessments and use those to guide their planning projects, as well as the recommendation from the committee with the colonias.
>> but I don't know that -- I don't think we ought to take anything off the table because I think that on a lot of these specifics it really depends on the details as to whether they make sense or not. I知 open. I thought we're putting together for the hud folks a list of potential projects. And I知 thinking that the broader the list the better. I don't know that hud is just looking for a list for year one, right?
>> no. It's a five-year plan.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> if we look at it the assist one time funding money, those things that invest in the infrastructure, the health and safety of our folks for the future, but I think we would make a mistake if we use it, [indiscernible] because that's ongoing.
>> yes.
>> and so I think we need to be very careful not to put in things that we would fund with ongoing money anyway. Let's look at this as things that we would fund with one-time money.
>> and I think that water and wastewater system ought to be just one kind of project. For me there are a whole lot of others. If we say one-time money, a one time a year if we do it right.
>> if we get the money.
>> they say the money for the first year is there. They have implied to me, hey, you meet these guidelines, the likelihood of receiving this money thereafter, especially for five years is greater than not receiving it if you do it right. And our goal outing to be to do it -- ought to be to do it right. My point, though, is that I think that we ought to come up with -- as broad of a list as we think qualifies, if we talk about citizen input next week, then citizens need something specific to respond to, whether they are adding to it or giving us input on whatever draft list we put together. My guess is that a meeting with citizens would be a lot more productive if they are responding to a draft list that we put together. I guess my only caveat is we don't know a whole lot about taking things off that list. I leave h.u.d. With the impression they will run out of money before we run out of projects first. But at the same time the projects have to qualify. At some point no matter how long your list is, you have got to prioritize. If you only have $2.4 million the first year, then you spend that $2.4 million by choosing from the list that you have there, and it doesn't really matter to me what the specific projects we come up with as long as we -- we objectively look at it and try to help residents of --
>> judge, I agree with you on that. And what I said earlier, the focusing -- meaning the same thing that you said there. The list is broad, however we only got an amount of money, $2.4 million to deal with right now, of course that money has to be used in my mind in some type of priority type of setting. [indiscernible] can't make next year or year after year after year after for the five year spending period. I知 wanting to focus on what those things are, they still haven't heard from the citizens that need to add to the list of what we have here, some of the recommendations that we have here that maybe things that we have left off that they maybe can provide. Then it is still a requirement, I guess what I知 hearing, that h.u.d. Need to have a citizen plan. As far as making sure that you meet all of their requirements. So -- so I知 in the same ballpark, but I -- the priority type stuff is where I知 leaning because you have got more things on here than you have money to deal with. So I知 concerned about that. What are we going to do the first year? You know, what are you doing the second year, third year, fourth, fifth year, on down the road. Judge I知 with you on that. As far as putting those kind of things -- as much stuff on the table as possible as far as what has been brought to us. Again again, whatever those things are, I think we still need to prioritize them.
>> can we provide you the best assistance today by each of us giving you a wish list for h.u.d. Funding?
>> yes, that would be very helpful, judge. What staff is hoping to be able to do, as we move through the citizens participation process is to identify for your constituents any priorities that you have. That you would have staff to consider. We must have a process whereby -- by citizens can bring forward projects that they feel are important to them and then we all come back together and decide which ones are most important. So the specifics of the projects versus the policy direction is really what staff is asking. What I have heard you say today is that you want us to look at the c.a.n. Needs assessment, you want us to look at those specific gaps in services, that helps us to say to the public in this process we will also be looking at past needs assessments, those gaps identified, using those as a yardstick, in addition to any recommendations that you all might make to us through the citizens participation process.
>> judge --
>> I was going to say if I learned anything from visiting 46 social service agency, the needs of those agencies went beyond the capacity of those individual agencies. They had all of them a special little project at safe place, it was like a little $50,000 project that was never going to get taken care of because it doesn't fall into the category of one more family in for assistance or the physical need of the facility. So a lot of things got put off as deferred whatever. I think we need to bring in asha, they could be of incredible assistance, surveying the landscape. They helped us with those c.a.n. Assessments, would know about these one-time special need kind of things that we could do that could make a tremendous difference. While it is very likely that we will get dollars year after year, the feds give and take away. We have seen tremendous federal programs get whittled away to practically nothing after they started off with gang busters. Community policing program is down to 0. Our hcp grant are investigate very difficult out of interior because everybody is taking a piece of the limited dollars out there. Certainly on the technology grants, through the sheriff's office, it was a million coming to this community. Now Austin and the Travis County split like 150,000. It's down to practically nothing. It is lovely, needs to be approached, whatever they did in any given year is great, how do you make those dollars go further.
>> speaker: going to have a huge interest in housing, housing at safe place, housing, housing, housing.
>> > ed smith with the coordinating committee and susan as well, everything that was said thus far I agree with 100%. You are absolutely right. We had envisioned as -- as the committee projects that we would not be able to fund, one-time projects that we would not be able to fund out of the general fund. Prohibiting out of the general fund. So what the consolidated plan should show it's general categories, if you look at harvey Davis' memo that was attached to the backup, starting point that we did about six months ago, it lists categories, [indiscernible] that would meet the national guidelines, the other thing is, Commissioner you are also absolutely correct, this money can be spent, we got the urban county designation, that's what it's called. Not just for rural areas of Travis County, it's for any part in Travis County unincorporated at the county. But we envision as a committee items that included all of the categories that -- that all of you all have listed today in addition to -- to items that we would not be able to fund out of the general fund that would be a one-time impact. Similar to the way that we run our corporations.
>> just from a -- from a philosophical version when the committee was talking, what we thought is that -- is that first of all, our goal would be to spend as much money on programs as little on administration as we can. I can only speak for my office because we are involved, this is a huge amount of grant money coming in. If in fact we decide to spend this money on some recipients, in other words giving it to other agencies, other governments to use, those are subrecipients. There is a lot of work in my office if that's what we do. You may want to do that anyway. I think it would take an a.p. Person plus a grants person if you decide you want to give all of this money to subrecipients f. You didn't do that, that would free that kind of money up for direct services. The other thing that the committee was -- was thinking just philosophically, it's kind of consistent with what you are doing is people can make big mistakes the first year, so he said really it would be good to get our arms around it a very specific project, perhaps wastewater, where it's defined. It's a business that Travis County is used to doing. We can contract ourselves, we can get it done without having to have other governments or other agencies do it. And that if you, for instance, I mean we have talked about a million things, so I知 just using examples, say your philosophy was housing. We might say okay year one, what could we do that we feel that we would be successful at, maybe it's water and wastewater. We have done those kind of projects before. We could contract those out. They have a definite time when they would be completed. So we could meet cdbg's requirements and we would do something along our philosophy. Kind of well defined. Doesn't require a lot of administrative overhead and start that way. So -- so we were talking just philosophically about that kind of an approach. And that if that's the kind of an approach that you liked, going down a particular road, even with public input say look this is our idea, within this what do you think we ought to do rather than say, you know, every agency is going to want money, they are, no question about that. You know. And if that isn't what we think really is going to happen, it may not be a good use of their time to put proposals together and your time in hearing them. So that's really -- really you know we -- my office is not involved in the programmatic part, but just on a philosophical structure in the way we might handle this very large amount of money coming into Travis County. For what that's worth, that's that was kind of some of the thoughts of the committee.
>> let each member of the court give you in writing between 9:00 and 5:00 Thursday, his or her comments. Put those together and on Tuesday we can respond to a specific list. You are working with a citizen participation plan you say to present to us next Tuesday.
>> yes.
>> get that to us by Thursday, let us respond to that, also. It would help me to see what the other jurisdictions have found to be successful.
>> okay.
>> in terms of a citizen participation plan.
>> okay. If we could have a few more minutes, judge, we do have --
>> I知 just trying to get clarity on what's supposed to take place between now and Thursday in preparation for next Tuesday. I know there are other things. But those are the two things. Potential list of projects and the citizens participation plan. And then we give you project direction next week in the form of formal votes. Okay. There are other issues that you have.
>> okay. If we can go to the slides just quickly, we are going to go to the time line slide. Next Tuesday we hope to have the citizen participation plan to present to the court and have it posted for public comment from that point. Once you all approve it. We are also looking at our first public hearing with -- at the Commissioners court on April 11th and what we hope to do was to start the public hearing process with the Commissioners court. Then have the precinct meetings and then have the last public hearing also with the Commissioners court, which we felt would give an opportunity for those residents who might not be able to make their precinct meeting, they would still have one more opportunity to -- to air any comments that they would have at that final public hearing, which we anticipate to be may 2nd. So we would start April 11th here with the court, have meetings out in the community, over the next 30 days, may 2nd would be the last public hearing with you -- with the court. We are looking at proposed project approvals, which would be in the form of a work session, sometime in may. With that happening hopefully by may 30th. We would hope to post the consolidated plan for public comment around June 15th. And then our plan is to try to get it in by the first of August. If we can go to the next slide, what is the citizen participation plan? It's a request for a -- for residents of Travis County to participate in community meetings, it outlines how, when, where those meetings will be held, explains the opportunities for residents to stress their needs. Express their needs. How individuals can participate, there will be public hearings at the Commissioners court and they will be in your traditional format. So it's important for us to know that, where residents will come forward and make whatever comments to you that they would like to make. However the public hearings within the community would be facilitated, so therefore there would be facilitators there to take them through structured, what is the grant, what are the things that we can pay for, those kind ofs of things, in the interest of time, we would just make one introduction of what our process is, then have members come forward to make comments to the court during the public hearings at the court.
>> here's a question to research. What if during the process of a project a city annexes that particular area where an ongoing project is underway. We need to know what the -- what the -- if it's already started do we get to complete it. If it was a two or three year project, they annex is in year two, are we precluded from finishing that out. We need to get things going on here related to annexation because quite frankly if some of these problems are fixed they might indeed be annexed by a city because the problem, keeping them from annexing. We need to have a real clear understanding of the annexation.
>> what's your definition of structure facility.
>> there would be a -- a prepared program where we would have staff to walk through with the public the requirements of the grant, then we would have a survey available, an opportunity for people to make comengts and then have -- make comments and then have maybe small group discussion about particular suggestions, so more of a community planning process as opposed to just taking testimony.
>> [indiscernible] expect us to give a list of potential projects, is there supposed to be a cost to each one of them or --
>> [indiscernible]
>> do they expect that much detail?
>> yes. There would be a detailed budget with each project, yes, sir. And I think we are having some technical difficulties, but we did want to put up the staff, here with me is meg pogue and christie moffett, the staff to help us with the county's consolidated plan, our contacts for information related to the process, so we will be seeing a lot of them over the next few months, both here at the court and outlet in the community -- out in the community as we move through this process. Finally, your backup has a budget. This is the preaward budget. I would ask that the court approve this preaward budget. As you recall our previous discussion several weeks ago, the court authorized through p.b.o. That health and human services be able to use salary savings to fund various line items related to the preparation of the consolidated plan, including the hiring of two f.t.e.'s and represented costs. Related costs. So that is the budget that you have before you.
>> this is the six months?
>> it is the six month budget, yes, it is.
>> do we need three [indiscernible]
>> staff have -- it's parking card is what we use, it's the city of Austin parking card for staff to be able to park here down at the granger building when they are working here. It just to pay parking fees.
>> it's the palm square folk that need to come up to this end.
>> yes.
>> I知 just trying to understand what it's about.
>> yes, I知 sorry. I zoned out on parking cards there.
>> that's good.
>> judge, I have one more follow-up question. I think that you probably answered part of it. But the funding aspect, in other words where to look at -- this particular peek at the October 24th, from harvey Davis to me, looking at a lot of projects with the city [indiscernible] funding, if we were to identify, if you were to identify projects that have funding earmarked to it, how will that be done? I知 really trying to flush this out a little bit more as far as what I heard as far as time down a number. As far as the amount of money. We talked about colonial, we talked about a whole lot of things. You talked about a whole lot of different things there. My question is how would that be done as far as putting a -- putting money, a value to that particular project based on what? You know, I see the project but how, you know, if we are going to look at colonial, [indiscernible] probably other colonials in Travis County, water and wastewater issues, there has to be some mechanism in my mind to tie down dollars to projects. And I think judge kind of moved it out. But I wanted to follow with -- with the how of all of this and that's what I知 trying to lead to, a lot of multi-projects here, one to five, if we have a five year commitment then of course those are five year dollars. Since that's the case it just appears to me that these projects even the citizens haven't even added to the list that we have here before us now as far as [indiscernible] projects, so I知 kind of concerned as to how to of all of this funding aspect for the money that's going to be set aside.
>> if we were to follow the line of questioning that susan had, that we would look at projects that would be recommended and under the direction of existing county departments, then those county departments will prepare the necessary budgets and plans related to the implementation of those particular projects. Then they would submit them to the cdbg team to be included in the consolidated plan. So it would be similar to a request for proposal type of process, but they would be proposals prepared by our county departments, if you will.
>> I guess is that required -- does that require the money attachment per project that will be sent to the feds as far as the earmarks, is that something that's required as the citizens of -- of participation plan. Is that a requirement? Something that we are asking for to make sure that we know exactly how much the -- it's going to cost.
>> are you asking do we have to know how much the project is going to cost while we are talking to the public?
>> right.
>> no, sir. We certainly can I think that's the reason for publishing a consolidated plan 30 days to -- prior to actually submitting it. Because if the public wanted to comment on why are you spending two million on this particular project when there's a less expensive project here that has more impact, then they would have an opportunity to come before you and comment about that part of the plan. So at this juncture it would be necessary to have that information.
>> all right, thank you.
>> [indiscernible] by planning and budget?
>> yes.
>> okay. You are asking the court to approve this under related --
>> under other related, yes.
>> why don't -- when would you act on this? Would you act on this immediately if we approve it today? Or do we have another week?
>> it's at court's pleasure.
>> immediately approve it today.
>> move approval of the budget.
>> second.
>> we discussed this during this last week, by the budget.
>> yeah. I just want to make sure that I understand this. Correctly. The reason that we are appropriating this out of our operating budget and actually out of your savings, this will be something that -- that will be able to be paid back out of the h.u.d. Guidelines because we can put up to 20% for administration for the program, correct.
>> that's correct.
>> that's how we would pay for it now if we had the money, but we will be paid back for this?
>> yes, sir. And staff has been as conservative as we felt possible because this is a part of -- of funding that we haven't received yet. So yes.
>> unless of course we put together a lousy plan and h.u.d. Goes --
>> that's right.
>> I mean try again next year because you don't have your stuff in order. So that's -- there could be some potential liability here, so we need to make sure that we toe the line in going forward with this thing, but the feds have told us you do all of these necessary things and there's 2 point you know $5 million here for it. I get it thank you.
>> if I could relate this, the court is probably familiar with under grants item there's a fairly routine sort of item, which is permission to continue, which is a period of time before contract is in place. You continue the grant program, the general fund fronts the money for those grants with the knowledge that should the grant be awarded we would be reimbursed, this is the same sort of situation with these funds.
>> any issues.
>> no. It's not quite a six month contract in that there's some one-time costs built into this, but we don't have --
>> you have taken this money from salary savings in your department.
>> that is correct.
>> any more discussion of the motion?
>> just that the -- the budget adjustment form, the number we are talking about is 109,000? That's what we are -- what we are approving today, right?
>> that's correct.
>> 109218.
>> okay. Thank you. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Any other issues today.
>> thank you all.
>> we need another agenda item for the citizens participation to be specifically listed, subpart I guess, an a and b just in case there's other stuff. I would think so -- the part dealing with citizens participation. Spell it out as a subpart here.
>> right.
>> yes.
>> anything else today?
>> [indiscernible] let my assistant know on the upcoming meeting. Keep me plugged in.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much,.
>> thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 22, 2006 7:57 AM