Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, February 15, 2011,
Travis County Housing Finance Corporation
>> now let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation.
consider and take appropriate action on request to approve the following: a, annual report from the housing authority of Travis County concerning eligible services rendered to Travis County residents, and b, reimbursement request from the housing authority of Travis County.
>> good afternoon.
I'm harvey Davis, manager of the corporation, and I'm here with craig alter, executive director of the housing authority.
>> hello.
>> and I'll turn it over to craig to briefly address item a.
>> okay.
>> Commissioners, it's my pleasure to be here this afternoon with you to bring you up to date --
>> can you pull that microphone close senator.
>> is that better?
>> yes.
>> my pleasure to be here with you today.
back in December of 2009, we requested a loan from Travis County housing finance in the amount not to exceed $135,000 to be used for two specific purposes, and one of them was a study, a management and operational study that was to be conducted by the southwest housing compliance corporation, which is an arm of the city of Austin's housing authority.
and the other was to provide funds for an independent audit that we were going to undergo.
a fuel review of inter fund balances that the housing and urban development department had requested that we analyze to ascertain their appropriateness and accuracy.
during the period from December 2009 through today, we have requested a total of 8,$415 and have used that towards the payment of the audit fees.
during that period, we have primarily focused our -- our attention on improving our operations at the housing authority of Travis County versus creating new resident service programs. However, we were fortunate to be able to team up with frameworks during that period of time to provide a series of courses in financial literacy, and we offered those courses to our section 8 housing choice voucher residents as well as our public housing residents.
and two series of courses were held over a period of June through -- June through November, and in those courses we had about 48 people attending those courses.
so that was something we were pleased to be able to do.
and in going forward, we have identified other areas of services that we want to begin implementing now that our programs are stabilized and we have undergone the organizational changes that we wanted to undertake.
they will include such things as ged classes, esl classes, breast cancer awareness screening, h.i.v.
testing, resume writing, assistance in training, job interview skills training, parenting skills training, working with big brothers, big sisters and boy scouts and girl scouts to try to bring together programs that will be great for our kids.
computer training and bringing some after school activities to the residents as well for the children.
so that's what we've done to date and we are not yet at this point claiming any specific value for the -- the training, the classes that were given during this period.
we will present that information to mr. Davis and and -- mr. Harvey Davis, and then seek a value for the inkind, if you will, service to our residents.
our agreement with Travis County was that if we provided services, we would ascertain the value of those services and then take a credit against the ultimate loan amount that we would receive from the county.
I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have about that.
>> go ahead, harvey.
I was just moving my mike.
>> I was just going to address address, that the housing authority that is made a request for $11,110 of the $135,000 loaned.
staff has reviewed their backup and does recommend that the board approve that payment.
I also will remind the board that on the -- this -- on the forgivable loan and the providing of the services, the housing authority does have a ten-year time period to provide the services to be able to earn the forgiveness of the loan.
the -- the -- if you approve the release of the $115,000, then the balance of the loan will be $123,525.
and in talking with the housing authority, they expect that -- that this will be the last payment.
there may be some more, but it would be a small amount.
so -- so there is about 12,000 -- about $11,500 then of the -- of the amount that will not be expended.
>> so the -- as a result of the audit, what's the situation with h.u.d.?
>> the situation was that the audit showed that the housing authority had been properly and accurately recording its balances between its programs, be it between federal programs or nonfederal programs and federal programs. So the bottom line determination was what is the amount of money that needs to be transferred back to the federal programs. So as of June 30, 2007, the amount was about $455,000.
so we have submitted to h.u.d.
a repayment plan showing that how we would repay that amount over a ten-year period.
h.u.d.
has not yet responded in terms of approving that plan, but we're expecting to hear from them in the near future.
>> that amount goes through 2007.
>> yes, sir.
>> what about from 2007 through February 15, 2011?
>> all right.
the analysis that we've done has taken us through the end of our last fiscal year, which was June 30th, 2010, and the balance had increased in those three years $635,000, approximately.
so that has not been requested by h.u.d.
however, that is an amount of money that the housing authority has already put into motion a plan to recover through the real its current assets to -- reallocation of its couldn't assets to put back in.
>> we think the total would be about 1.1 million.
>> that's right.
>> you plan to ask for a ten-year term to satisfy that if h.u.d.
agrees to the amount and insists on being repaid.
>> yes.
that is all correct.
>> by the way, I'm not guessing this.
we met yesterday.
>> [laughter] any other questions or comments?
>> do we need to approve b?
move approval.
>> we do, and we did approve $135,000 and only a small amount of that has been drawn down thus for, but you need the other part, the 115,000 additional dollars as soon as possible.
>> yes, sir.
>> move approval.
>> second that motion.
and just for the record, let's just state, mr. Alter was not here when these problems arose, but he's been part of the fix.
he and the current board, and so we appreciate his dedication and hard work, et cetera.
>> you are very welcome.
thank you.
>> any more discussion of the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> move we adjourn.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote too.
thanks for coming by and we'll be chatting with you soon.
>> thank you very much.
>> the new location is working out fine?
>> it's great.
>> county staff is not causing you any problems over at the highland mall location?
>> we're taking care of them for you.
>> is that what we call it, the highland mall location?
that's close enough?
>> I'm not even sure.
>> the mall has got a lot of press lately.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, February, 2011 2:19 PM
