Travis County Commissioners Court
March 3, 2009,
Item 19
Let's go to number 19.19.
consider and take appropriate action on the following related to the use of community development block grant funding received from the u.s.
department of housing and urban development: a, update on the timeliness of funds expenditure rate; b, review letter -- should we just take these as we read them.
>> we can do that.
>> h.u.d.
requires -- christie moffat, Travis County health and human services.
h.u.d.
requires that we have no more than one and a half times our allocation in our line of credit in the 10th month of our grant year.
for us that means on July of 2009, h.u.d.
is going to look at our expenditure rate and look at our ratio.
right now, we are at 2.64.
last year on -- in July of 2008 we were at 1.99.
as a result of our ratio last year, we were put under h.u.d.
policy sanction for not spending our money in a timely way.
however, I would also like to remind the court that we had an unexpected delay in starting our cdbg program.
as a result of the h.u.d.
allocation error and that actually -- they disallowed our consolidated plan when we first turned it in in 2006.
so we delayed implementing projects until that was completed.
and excuse me and so as a result we have been a little slow in spending our money.
so our current ratio right now is 2.64.
>> so will h.u.d.
want to know what steps we took to -- to spend the money more quickly?
>> well, I think we have illustrated in the backup, we made some decisions at the time that we were notified that our allocation was incorrect.
and one that we determined to be significant is our decision to -- to absorb the administrative costs.
have we put those administrative costs into the -- into the grant?
we would not -- it's our opinion that we would not be -- be having this timeliness issue.
however, it was the court's interest at that time because of the significant reduction, I mean two-thirds almost reduction in the amount of money that we were initially awarded, to make available as much of the federal dollars for programs and projects as possible.
so it was an unintended consequence of a decision that we thought was -- was appropriate.
and I would submit to you that I would still think that it is appropriate.
>> and so the -- so I guess our justification for this at this point is that what I did was I took our draw downs, assuming that if we were in the same state as we are now, with our sending down of funds, I took a look at what we have spent down as of July last year, and made some adjustments for -- for our administration and planning because we were already incurring those costs.
so as we had spent down those funds where would we have been?
we would have drown dan an additional $248,654 which over an 18 month time period, which would have put us at a timeliness ratio of 1.52.
that's -- that's including the four month delay and assuming every other decision we had made had been the same.
with the exception of funding the administration and planning.
so just to be fair, I did the same calculation assuming that we had received $2.5 million because, to be honest, maybe we would have been slow in spending then as well.
what I have determined is that what helps brand new entitlements get timely and stay timely at least for the first two to three years is the administration and planning.
we would have been timely had we funded the administration and planning as we did originally in our initial application at 20%.
we had already made -- the court had already made that decision and had we followed through with that decision, we would have been timely in July of 2008.
which -- which wouldn't have put us in the situation this coming year.
so --
>> so our options at this time is to request a waiver for the -- for the evaluation of timeliness in July.
we have checked in with all of the project leads for the programs and projects that have been approved, we feel confident that -- that we will achieve timeliness in this year.
>> next year.
>> well, the next time we check it, which will be in 2010, but there are many, many projects that will be moving forward in this year that will move us toward this timeliness.
but I think it is prudent for us to move forward with the request for the waiver in a time period that would allow h.u.d.
to consider our requests and respond.
>> the deadline is July 1, you say?
>> July 30th.
>> July 30th.
>> July 30th, okay.
>> there's a habitat for humanity contract that's been pending for some time.
>> yes.
>> they are ready to purchase those homes to build on.
>> they are.
and we are in the final stages of that.
but even spending that money isn't going to make us timely.
it will get us closer.
>> that was about to be my question.
if we get that done within the next couple of months, that will move us closer.
>> it will move us closer.
>> but we still will be in non-compliance.
>> with staff brought to you all the decision to support the infrastructure for that land acquisition, it was with the intention that they would have already purchased the land and they would have already started infrastructure already.
because of our delay they haven't been able to purchase the land.
as a result they haven't been able to start the infrastructure project.
what I can tell you is that we anticipate in July 2009 our ratio will be 1.81.
by sent of 2009 it will be 1.69.
and then we actually expect to be timely, even with our -- we expect to be timely even adding our '09 allocation of $833,000 by may of 2010.
we think that we will actually be timely earlier than that because that is assuming we spend no additional -- we don't have to spend a dime of '09 money to get to that 1.49.
and by July of 2010, we'll be at 1.13, again with no spending of '09 money.
and what that tells us is that we have funded things and it's taken us a little time to get everything in the queue.
we are expecting apache shores subject which has been $800,000 wrapped up into that, construction would start before March.
as that begins to draw down plus you add in the habitat land acquisition plus the infrastructure, we're going to be drawing down a significant amount of money in the next 12 to 18 months.
>> okay.
so in b, we have a letter requesting a waiver of timeliness;
>> yes.
>> that letter is to h.u.d.
which will actually have to make -- make a change to that letter.
just right now that is addressed to john maldanado, he has switched positions within h.u.d.
the san antonio field office.
he's no longer the cpd director, now over the new funds that are coming down to h.u.d.
through the economic stimulus package.
so we need to address this letter to richard lopez the field office director.
>> we don't want to put that as a reason for --
>> [laughter] -- our not
>> [indiscernible] mr.
maldanado's promotion.
>> right.
>> a little h.u.d.
humor.
>> yes.
>> [laughter]
>> okay.
>> move approval of the letter.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> okay.
and c is for the county judge to sign that letter.
mail it.
>> move approval of that second.
>> discussion?
discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
other related issues.
>> there are none.
>> y'all say that gleefully.
>> I know, yay!
>> then we don't need d this time.
thank you for your patience.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2:17 PM