Clinton Housing Authority's Use Of American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Funds

This is a state audit of how the Clinton Housing Authority used federal stimulus money from March 1, 2009 through August 31, 2010.

“In accordance with Chapter 11, Section 12, of the General Laws, we have conducted an audit of certain activities of the CHA for the period March 1, 2009 to August 31, 2010.”

The audit checked whether the housing authority spent federal stimulus funds properly, tracked the work, and followed ARRA rules.

“The objectives of our audit were to conduct a review of certain federal stimulus funds received and expended by the CHA and to review the management control system for measuring, reporting and monitoring the effectiveness of its programs and to evaluate compliance with laws, rules and regulations applicable to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).”

Public reports about stimulus spending are supposed to tell residents how money was used and what jobs it supported; here, the job numbers were overstated.

“By reporting 3.0 jobs each quarter, the Authority reported 12 jobs being created under this ARRA grant; however, only 1.5 jobs were actually created/retained.”

If you live in or care about Clinton public housing, the money paid for practical upgrades like windows, furnaces, and electrical work.

“During our audit period, the CHA was awarded an ARRA grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for capital improvements in the amount of $212,486 for the replacement and installation of windows at the public housing project.”

The spending controls were mostly acceptable, but the authority needed to fix how it reported jobs and expenses.

“IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED IN ARRA REPORTING”

For any future ARRA reporting, the housing authority said it would use the federal jobs formula and report expenses when they are incurred.

“The CHA will use the OMB’s formula for calculating jobs in the future.”

This was not a tiny review: the authority received or was awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus-funded housing improvements.

“The following table details the federal stimulus funds awarded, received and expended during the audit period.”

ARRA means the federal stimulus law; FTE means counting work as full-time-equivalent jobs instead of simply counting people or estimates.

“In calculating a FTE, the number of actual hours worked in funded jobs are divided by the number of hours representing a full work schedule for the kind of job being estimated.”