Overview
We have worked with several grantees with chronic CDBG timeliness concerns including the cities of Detroit, Newburgh, NY, Burlington and Durham, NC and Tacoma, WA. These cities experienced long-term CDBG timeliness problems resulting in repeated failures to meet the regulatory test found at 24 CFR 570.902.
Recipients of HUD funding must adhere to rules that require the timely use of funds. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program requires grantees to have no more than 1.5 times their most recent annual grant in their line of credit 60 days before the end of their program year (see 24 CFR 570.902). At the time this rule was issued, many CDBG entitlement grantees failed this test resulting in billions of dollars of unexpended funds nationwide. The CDBG Covid-19 (CDBG-CV) program requires grantees to expend at least 80 percent of their grant within three years. HUD became concerned that too many grantees appeared to be failing this requirement necessitating a series of CDBG-CV Problem Solving Clinics to assist individual grantees to identify and correct timeliness problems before they become critical.
Solutions We Offer
As consultants working with numerous grant recipients with major timeliness problems, we have found a consistent pattern. They do not have an effective management tool that can track approved activities to assure timely performance. Absent such a tool, recipients are largely “flying blind” because they cannot identify slow-moving activities quickly enough to avoid failing the required timeliness tests. C-FACTS has developed a new Program Activity Tracking System (PATS) that effectively addresses this problem.
PATS forecasts future monthly expenditures on a user-friendly excel spreadsheet for all approved activities. The grantee then tracks actual expenditures against projections to identify and address activities that are falling behind. One important feature of our system is that performance data is taken from the existing HUD program information systems (IDIS and DRGR) to assure that actual performance matches reported performance. For the first time, these grant recipients have a system that enables them to “red flag” problems quickly, implement corrective actions and assure that overall timeliness occurs.
Program Activity Tracking System (PATS) tool
Click here to view the Program Activity Tracking System (PATS) tool.
