Friday, May. 01, 2009
Discontent about vote persistent
Some question why city did not hire its own grant analysts
By Corey Pride / cpride@losbanosenterprise.com
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ReprintAn April 1 City Council decision to pay the local council of governments $193,156 to administer two grant programs and contribute annual membership dues has created a mini-controversy in Los Baños.
Some people, including some council members, feel the city is being over-charged for the services it is receiving.
Last month the council voted 3-2 to allow the Merced County Association of Governments to oversee Los Baños' HOME and Neighborhood Stabilization programs. The city will pay MCAG $60,000 for staff time spent on the HOME Program and $86,750 for the neighborhood stabilization work. The programs deal with helping people repair their residences and assisting home owners in purchasing foreclosed homes. The money paid for administering the programs comes out of the grants, according to Chief Financial Officer Melinda Wall.
MCAG's membership fee is $46,406. It is paid from the city's general fund, Wall said.
At the April 1 council meeting local resident Geneva Brett proposed hiring someone from Los Baños to administer the grants instead of paying MCAG.
Her suggestion was ignored, but the issue did not go away because MCAG recently advertised for a grant analyst. The organization has three levels of grant analysts whose pay scale ranges from $23.40 an hour to $38.12.
"If you take $30 an hour, times eight hours, times five days, times four weeks, times nine you get $43,200," said Councilman Mike Villalta, who used a calculator to figure out what he believes the estimated nine months of work on the Neighborhood Stabilization Program would mean in average pay for a grant analyst.
Villalta believes that MCAG is charging $43,550 too much.
MCAG Executive Director Jesse Brown said the pay is for two years of work. He said the nine months does not mean a person works on that program everyday for nine straight months. In the case of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program MCAG has had staff working on it since last summer, Brown said.
Brown also said two grant analysts are already working on Los Baños' programs and the person they are hiring is for programs MCAG will administer for Gustine and Dos Palos.
Villalta is not impressed with the reason for the hiring.
"I don't care who it's for. They are hiring people and we can do the same thing. I think saying it's for Gustine and Dos Palos is just a way of passifying Los Baños," Villalta said.
Elaine Post, Los Baños' Redevelopment Agency director, said she expects a second grant analyst will be hired by MCAG because one analyst is leaving the job and one died a few months ago.
Post said with the detail required to get the grants and administer the programs she and other city staff do not have time or the expertise to do the job. Post said MCAG has four people who write, review, study new regulations, and talk with state and federal officials respectively.
In answer to Brett's concern, Post said if someone from Los Baños has the expertise to be a grant analyst they should apply for the MCAG job. She said the city hiring someone creates an unnecessary risk of not getting the grant.
"If we have anything wrong we get fined, have to pay back the money and won't get the grant the next time we apply." Post said."Since I've been here every time we've gone for a grant through MCAG we've gotten it."
Mayor Tommy Jones has similar concerns about not using MCAG.
"For me the key to those programs is that it's successful," Jones said. "One of the most important things is contacts. You have to have the contacts to ensure that the program is a success."
Councilman Tom Faria, who along with Villalta voted against letting MCAG administer the programs, said he thought the city should have at least explored the possibility of hiring its own grant analyst.
"I think we should have at least advertised," Faria said. "If we had floated the position we could have asked if they had the contacts before we handed it over to MCAG."
Councilwoman Elizabeth Stone is concerned with the level of expertise needed to administer the grants.
"We pay MCAG for these services because we can't do it ourselves. It would be so much more expensive to do it on our own," she said. "This is money Los Baños definitely needs. If any city makes a mistake..."
The HOME Program is a $600,000 grant and the city has been told it is eligible for $2.4 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program money.
Questions have also arisen about the MCAG membership fee.
Brett wanted to know why the city's annual fee was based on population numbers from 2007.
Brown said the population size, which is calculated by the California Department of Finance each May, determines how much money MCAG gives the cities when it receives federal dollars.
"If some people in Los Baños feel the fees should be reduced we can do that. The money you get will be reduced. That's called fairness," Brown said.
MCAG received $10.1 million from the federal government for transportation in the past year. Based on its population size Los Baños received $1.4 million of those federal funds.