URA officials explain Comptroller Reynolds’ time-consuming payment ritual
The Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency met Tuesday, June 18, 2019 for its monthly meeting.
The board adopted two resolutions to pay the planning commissioner’s salary and to hire a consultant to prepare a Continuum of Care application.
Executive Director Chantelle Okarter explained that the URA has improved its performance in administering the Continuum of Care program. In 2017 there were 16 audit findings compared with the most recent audit that only had six findings, or issues that needed attention.
Reports submitted in 2016 for the 2011–14 compliance requirements were deemed insufficient by HUD. Okarter and her staff highlighted how the two-page submissions for 2011–14 by the former leadership failed to comply with HUD’s reporting standards compared with the current leadership’s reports that average about 20 pages each.
Discussion then turned to how the City does not have a grant-spending tracking system the way other communities do. The URA is working on a solution to that.
A major point of the meeting’s discussion was the time-consuming rituals that Comptroller Deborah Reynolds requires of the URA before releasing funds to the agency, even though the federal agency HUD has mandated that Comptroller Reynolds transfer funds to the URA within three business days.
“We’re still having significant issues with getting timely wire transfers from the Comptroller’s office,” Okarter said.
“On average it’s taking five to six weeks,” added interim Treasurer Darren Morton
Among the Comptroller’s inefficiencies are her insistence on rituals. No requests for a release of funds can be made by email; a meeting must be scheduled to make a request for payment in person, said Okarter.
Once that meeting has been held, the Comptroller informs when the URA staff can deliver back-up documentation for the drawdowns they’ve requested. Then another meeting must be requested, which can take a week or two weeks to schedule simply to provide the backup documentation.
Another inefficiency is the Comptroller’s unwillingness to deposit payments in a timely fashion. “About $200,000 in summer camp and youth programs has not been deposited because the Comptroller is insisting on City Council legislation that is not needed,” said deputy planning Commissioner Sylvia Bolivar.
“We won’t be able to fund city agencies if that’s the case,” Bolivar said.
The URA staff reported that they have made progress on filing reports to federal authorities. The 2017 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report is done and ready to be submitted, while the 2016 report has been accepted. In previous administrations federal authorities didn’t accept the reports because they did not contain adequate information.
The board discussed a troubling update on the URA audit. The firm Grassi & Grassi that is working on closing the books for 2015/16 identified a series of concerning adjustments made in past years under previous leadership. Some adjustments were made in the multi-millions without explanation or documentation.
Councilman Marcus Griffith asked, “Why hasn’t O’Connor Davies presented their work paper to Grassi?” He went on to confirm that the agency staff and Grassi did in fact make such requests over the past few months. O’Connor Davies has not responded.
