nothin City Pays Back HUD $$, Fixes Reporting… | New Haven Independent

City Pays Back HUD $$, Fixes Reporting Problems

Neal-Sanjurjo: “We’re in a good place.”

The city has paid back $82,919 and changed the way it reports block-grant spending to the federal government in response to a critical audit.

The federal Department of Housing of Urban Development (HUD) conducted the routine audit last April of the way the then-DeStefano administration had spent Community Development Block Grant (CBDG) money from July 2012 through June 2013.

It found four instances of the city failing to follow HUD guidelines for spending or reporting money used by the Livable City Initiative (LCI) neighborhood anti-blight agency. The city each year distributes block-grant money to local not-for-profits as well as to government agencies dealing with problems affecting the poor.

In a Dec. 10 letter to current city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson, regional HUD Community Planning and Development Director Alanna Kabel ordered the city to take corrective actions.

The attached HUD monitoring report issued four findings” of the city failing to meet HUD guidelines. The city generally erred out of a lack of knowledge” of the correct procedures — including how to enter data correctly into HUD’s computer system breaking down how staff members spent each hour on the job — rather than knowingly or intentionally straying, the report concluded. HUD spokeswoman Rhonda Siciliano confirmed that assessment in a conversation Thursday with the Independent.

Click here to read the Dec. 10 letter and monitoring report.

Late Thursday Nemerson received another letter from Kabel thanking the city for its timely” response. Kabel wrote that HUD has closed its case in three of the four findings” because the city took the needed corrective action.

With this letter, three of the Findings are closed,” Kabel wrote.

The city still has to take action in the next 30 days to clear up the final open finding,” Kabel wrote: LCI is using the wrong matrix code” to document how it went about foreclosing on, cleaning up, securing, and selling trashed vacant homes and lots and dispensing with sliver lots to reduce blight in low-income areas.” LCI also needs to detail how staff time was allocated for the work.

Click here to read the latest letter.

LCI’s on it, said Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, who has been immersed in the case since she took over the agency in December.

We have been working diligently” with the city’s corporation counsel, economic development, and management and budget offices, Neal-Sanjurjo said. We’re in a good place. There was no impropriety,” just missing documentation.

In one case the city couldn’t prove LCI had spent $82,919 according to HUD’s rules. The money went toward emergency repairs to correct any unsafe housing conditions which constitute an imminent and substantial danger to the welfare and safety of the occupants,” including lack of water, heat, electricity or gas caused by” code violations. HUD found that the mayor failed to declare an emergency condition” and that the repair work itself was not related to a threat to public health and safety.” The city has returned that $82,919 to its block grant account.

Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer said Thursday that the budget office found previously unspent money to replace it from an LCI property-management capital account.

In the other two cases, the city did satisfy HUD that it has:

• Updated its procedures for reviewing and documenting” that projects on which it spent CDBG money were indeed eligible, by creating a checklist backed up by a written narrative.

• Addressed 760 housing-code violations (including uninhabitable dwellings) in Newhallville, Fair Haven, and the Hill in a proactive” way that holds the promise of arresting the neighborhoods’ general deterioration, rather than simply responding to random complaints as they come in. The city provided maps, records, and a list of public and private investments in the area(s) that are expected to arrest the deterioration,” as well as a target date for the decline’s arrest.

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