http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/891616.html
HUD official blasts block grant program
End mismanagement, Sims tells city leaders
By Phil Fairbanks and Brian Meyer, News Staff Reporters
December 11, 2009, 11:55 PM /
Buffalo's decades-long mismanagement of millions of dollars in federal anti-poverty funding must end, a top housing official said Friday.
Ron Sims, deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, issued his ultimatum after meeting with Mayor Byron W. Brown, Common Council members and local housing and human service leaders. Sims stopped short of threatening sanctions against the city but made it clear the city must improve its Community Development Block Grant program. "I'm not going to threaten anybody," Sims said at a news conference. "I don't need to threaten anybody." Chief among Sims' concerns is the city's record of performance, a concern echoed by the lawmaker who brought him to Buffalo.
"There's been a stain on Buffalo," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, "and I want that removed. We don't need that here." One of Slaughter's biggest concerns is the East Side, the part of Buffalo she represents and by far the poorest community in the city. She wants assurances that enough block grant money is being spent there, and spent well, a guarantee Sims expects as well.
"One would hope," he said, "that the City of Buffalo would make the decision to spend its money where it's needed most." Sims said HUD will ask the city to enter into an agreement that will outline what it must do to improve oversight of its block grant program. The agreement will focus on issues like accountability, transparency and performance. "We will not rest until this is corrected," Slaughter said of the program.
Buffalo, the nation's third-poorest city, gets about $23 million a year in block grant funds and has received a total of $670 million since the program began 35 years ago. Sims and Slaughter acknowledged that some of Buffalo's problems date back 20 years and that HUD has failed to remedy them. So why should the taxpaying public expect anything different now? "The fact that I'm here today," Sims said. "Normally, deputy secretaries stay away from these things."
The agreement outlined by Sims is expected to go a long way toward remedying the deficiencies detailed in a HUD audit earlier this year. The city has resolved 14 of the 19 deficiencies identified in the audit, but the five that remain are among its most serious findings. Chief among them is HUD's claim that the city lacks "overall management systems to ensure oversight, compliance and progress" of the block grant program.
The city also faces questions about $3.7 million used in connection with its slum and blight strategy. "There has to be a new day," Sims said during an hourlong meeting with city officials. "Block grant is very central to us."
Throughout the day, Sims shied away from confrontation, preaching compromise and cooperation instead. "We will come to you as a partner. Not as a regulator. Not with the baseball bat," he said. "But we're going to be interested in performance. That's going to be really key."
City Finance Commissioner Janet Penksa, who oversees the administration's efforts at reform, insisted the city has been working cooperatively with HUD to address deficiencies highlighted in the scathing federal audit. Penksa also took aim at some Common Council critics and at the media for fostering what she described as a "negative" environment. "The politicization of this process is really hindering [us]," she said. "When you're dealing with [Freedom of Information] requests, Buffalo News investigations and various misunderstandings, it's taking us away from our work." At that point, Sims jumped into the conversation. "That's an insider issue," Sims told Penksa, "That is not a HUD issue."
Tensions between the Brown administration and the Council were evident during the meeting. Council President David A. Franczyk complained to HUD that the city withholds funding from high-performing organizations. "Good groups are being bounced for bad groups," Franczyk said. Penksa said the problem is that there are too many groups and too few resources to go around. She said the city has an obligation to make sure all neighborhoods receive some form of assistance.
Sims and Slaughter also met with housing and human service groups that depend on block grant funding. "It was a very lively meeting," said Marlies A. Wesolowski, executive director of the Lt. Matt Urban Human Services Center. "All of us sitting around the table wanted the same thing, a transparent, accountable process that is based on performance."
While Niagara Council Member David A. Rivera said it's gratifying to hear that many of the city's deficiencies have been addressed, he remains concerned that significant problems remain. Federal and city officials have an obligation, Rivera said, to make sure every dollar in anti-poverty funds is spent prudently. "For HUD to continue to fund programs that are being mismanaged," he said Friday, "is just throwing money down a hole."
Masten Council Member Demone A. Smith noted that some of the deficiencies red-flagged in the HUD report are long-standing issues, some of them dating back to former Mayor James D. Griffin. "Some of the biggest problems have been plaguing the program for years, from one administration to another," said Smith.
Brown was invited to the meeting with HUD officials and Council members, but officials said he had a schedule conflict. Instead, Sims met with the mayor earlier in the day. Despite that meeting, Sims and Slaughter found themselves facing questions about Brown's absence in October when Sims' boss, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, was here. When a reporter described Brown's action as a snub, Slaughter dismissed any connection between that and Sims' visit. "We're not returning any snub for snub," she said.
pfairbanks@buffnews.com and
bmeyer@buffnews.com
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Save Us
