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MyspaceWith 4th District Supervisor Joni Gray recusing herself from the discussion, the remaining county supervisors showed an eagerness on Tuesday to improve the county’s oversight of the outside organizations Santa Barbara government gives money to, despite inherent difficulties in doing so. The board responded this week to a Grand Jury report on the Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation (LHCDC), which gave a damning look at oversight failures by several groups. “There were ample signs of trouble,” the report — issued in June — said. “Initiative was not taken and too many opportunities were missed.” Because of that, the Grand Jury concluded, financial mismanagement of the LHCDC, which was Lompoc’s biggest provider of affordable housing, wasn’t caught until quite late.
One of the big issues with the LHCDC was that the county had not received any financial statements from the organization for a number of years. The Grand Jury recommended the county withhold funding for organizations that don’t provide records for annual audits or don’t comply with the requirements of existing contracts. But one of the difficulties, Auditor-Controller Bob Geis told the board, is that, because of federal rules, the county might not be able to withhold a HUD grant if an organization is slightly out of compliance.
The Grand Jury recommended that the Auditor-Controller’s Office conduct an annual audit of every organization that receives more than $100,000 from the county, but the supervisors said this was not feasible. The county makes vendor payments in excess of $100,000 to roughly 365 different groups, and it would simply cost too much money to do that many audits. The board instead said that Geis should provide them a report of annual expenditures of more than $100,000, and as funding allows, the Auditor-Controller could review organizations for compliance efforts. (Geis did say that all audits his office performed are reported to the Board of Supervisors.) County CEO Chandra Wallar said staff is organizing a contract compliance committee to help with such efforts.
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http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/loca...
"Lompoc city staff had proposed adding the theater-related costs to foreclose on the property from the failed Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation, owner of the landmark theater since 2006.
Those estimated costs included roof repair and stabilization, $20,000 in back property taxes, insurance on the now uninsured building, and a structural analysis of the deteriorating structure, for a total of $1 million from the $4 million in reserves held by the former redevelopment agency."
The fact of the matter is that the LHCDC was a County operated enterprise that conducted business from the office of Joni Gray, Board of Supervisor. The enterprise was granted non-profit status. However, after its dissolution, it seems that the property formerly owned by the LHCDC, the historic Lompoc Theatre, now owes more than $20k in property taxes to the Office of Joe Holland.
Its worth noting that while the LHCDC was operated by County staff it was tax exempt. Now that the City of Lompoc is negotiating the foreclosure, property taxes are now due to the County.
Something stinks to high heaven.
TheTruthLiesInTheContradiction (anonymous profile)
August 22, 2012 at 2:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/loca...
The council discussion, lasting almost two hours, displayed members’ frustration with the staff’s
failure to acknowledge that oversight needed to be improved. The prepared staff response did not report that a policy on contract compliance had been requested by the council several months ago and has yet to be developed by staff.
“We’re missing the boat here,” said Councilwoman Cecilia Martner, who requested the new contract compliance policy last October. “The grand jury did provide information that there was a lack of oversight. The city’s answer is ‘Well, not really.’
“I really don’t want to see us respond that way. I really want to see us say that we’re going to take the following steps to make sure that lack of oversight doesn’t repeat itself,” Martner said
Martner and Lingl, both elected in November 2008, served on the previous council that voted in 2010 to deny extensions to LHCDC on delinquent loans and to foreclose on a delinquent $375,000 loan for a vacant lot LHCDC had failed to develop for several years. At the time, LHCDC had failed to file financial audits for more than three years.
Martner also commented on the Grand Jury’s finding that the county, as the lead agency in a consortium to administer federal affordable-housing funds, failed to enforce compliance with LHCDC’s low-income properties, including property standards and maintenance.
TheTruthLiesInTheContradiction (anonymous profile)
August 23, 2012 at 8:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)