Detroit loses out on $9.2M to help poor people--failure of Bing Administration

[Woodward's Cousin]

After being in office for two and a half years can anyone dispute that Mayor Bing has not come close to assembling a team of public executives and managers capable of competently governing the City of Detroit. If he runs for re-election, which I doubt, Mayor Bing's most powerful campaign slogan will be: "At least he's not a crook".

Detroit loses out on $9.2M to help poor people

http://www.freep.com/article/2011110...xt|FRONTPAGE|p

[Scottathew]

Dang, that stinks. It would have brought jobs, fixed up homes, and helped folks in need.


I don't know if I would be for passing legislation for this, but in this case it was already passed, we had the money, it's use it or lose it, and we lost it.

[Novine]

He's a businessman! Let a businessman run the government and make everything right! Another sign that Bing's woefully in over his head and it's the people of Detroit who are suffering.

[Detroitnerd]

More and more, I just think Bing was a minority figurehead, then a political Trojan horse with all the old Kilpatrick-niks inside him.

[Blueidone]

In the meantime, contractors [[like the company I work for) are waiting...and waiting...and waiting to get paid for weatherization work that WAS done. It is been at least 90 days for most invoices that are overdue. And our subcontractors are waiting for us to get paid so they can get paid. It's just ridiculous!

[downtownguy]

If he runs for re-election, which I doubt, Mayor Bing's most powerful campaign slogan will be: "At least he's not a crook".

Hasn't he already announced he's going to run for re-election? And wasn't that contrary to what he promised when he ran for his first term?

[Wesley Mouch]

I'll take that lie over Kwame's lies anyday. [[Besides, who really believed that anyway. Kinda like saying that a voter's baby is the prettiest baby...)

[oladub]

Why does the federal government even have such programs? It isn't like federal government housing programs have a history of being efficient or without corruption either. Now that the federal government has allowed, even encouraged, manufacturing to leave the country, people healthier than Ms. Dunlap, who is on over her head being disabled, can't find a job to pay for such things. Ms, Dunlap, for her part, would probably be better off in a small apartment where there would be fewer things needing her attention given her inability or disablity.

[downtownguy]

I'll take that lie over Kwame's lies anyday. [[Besides, who really believed that anyway. Kinda like saying that a voter's baby is the prettiest baby...)

Maybe some people fall for the pretty baby line. But when a candidate says s/he is running for one term only, and you believe this will make them more independent, less prone to favors, and dedicating themselves to four, full years of service without the distractions of putting together and funding a re-election campaign, then yes, I think it matters.

[majohnson]

The State of Michigan should have been charged with administering the program.
Or even the counties.

[Gannon]

I wouldn't give the state control of monies targeted to poor people in Detroit. It seems the current governor would rather we all starve and just otherwise go away!

H-m-m-n-n, I'm sure Ficano can be trusted with a cool nine-mil...oops, nope.

Nah, I'd keep it local, but when this money...OUR public trust...is on the line, it should be VERY publicly noted every step of the way. There is no valid reason why this deadline was missed...but I'd rather the delivery mechanism be as close to the focus as possible.


I really started calling him Mayor Bong in earnest with this news. <sigh> A few more mis-steps, and he's Bung to me.


No cheers at all...

[antongast]

I really started calling him Mayor Bong in earnest with this news.

Coming from you, I would think that would be a compliment. Or do you prefer to roll your own?

[Gannon]

It was originally scorn after that huge waste of a grower bust at Mack and Chene. He was dazed and confused and clearly lusting after that crop during his very public tour of the scene.

I began playing with ridicule...thinking he was Bang when he played basketball in college and the NBA...couldn't find a funny for the letter E...we know him using I in Bing...but he was steadily heading towards the pungent Bung smell of our previous mayor, whose organized crime family I've been suspicious Bong was a front for all along.


For the record, though, you're right. I am much more fond of bongs than any other type of cannabis consumption aid...except the ever-trusty vaporizers, like the Volcano. You get more medicine without the extras. Who has the time to bake, especially when you're baked?!

[Jimaz]

Ironic that the money was lost because Detroit couldn't spend it fast enough.

[R8RBOB]

After being in office for two and a half years can anyone dispute that Mayor Bing has not come close to assembling a team of public executives and managers capable of competently governing the City of Detroit. If he runs for re-election, which I doubt, Mayor Bing's most powerful campaign slogan will be: "At least he's not a crook".

Detroit loses out on $9.2M to help poor people


http://www.freep.com/article/20111101/NEWS01/111010375/Detroit-loses-9-2M-help-poor?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

Detroit returned $9.2 million in federal funds intended to help lower-income homeowners cut their energy bills this year because the city couldn't spend the money in time, the Free Press has learned.

The Bing administration should be embarrassed. You can't spend money in a timely matter. I have to ask if this is why Bing is out of business? He couldn't spend the money in time.

[rjk]

"Mayor Dave Bing's office declined to explain why the department couldn't keep pace with its goal, but pledged to improve the city's handling of grants."

That's reassuring.
He needs to be out in front of a camera answering questions about this massive screw up.
Does anyone even remember what Bing looks like?

[Gannon]

Glazed eyes and stammering vocalization when amidst a forest of cannabis plants...but overall, no, he is the invisible mayor.

[MidTownMs]

The way I see it that's 9.2M that won't end up in the hands of crooks.

[R8RBOB]

The way I see it that's 9.2M that won't end up in the hands of crooks.

And it didn't land in the hands of po' folk so Uncle Sam took it back.

[lilpup]

The non-profit I work for doesn't even seek out grants due to the administrative burden and the politics attached to them.

[GoGrixdale]

What I got from the reporting is that $5M is being transfered to MCAA and the rest to Non-Profits to be named later I guess.

This smells like the underlay for the overplay to me. The city process that distributes this kind of grant money is broken inherently by design. I submit that IF there was a semi-pure effort to properly distribute these dollars that it was stifled by the process and bureaucracy of the old machine.

For years the CoD grant machine has done exactlywhat it was designed to do. Leak money like a sieve without questions or ramifications. If you look at the DCBG numbers from 2009-10 vs 2010-11 it looks like there are holes being plugged but there are still many questionable items. Non-Profits have been a light risk cash cow for "them" spanning decades.

While everyone has their nose in the General Fund, no one is watching the NPO distribution of this money on the backend. By backend I include the hundreds of thousands of dollars allocated that are not spent or, more than likely, not misappropriated. When grant money is forfeited and moved to other NPOs for administration by a single hand, that's never the meat of the news story.

If [[IF) there was a concerted effort protect more of the dollars and spend them wisely how harshly would that've been met downtown? In the adversarial [[legislative vs. executive), political climate how agile are the requirements for contracts, and for that mater payments?

Before I crucify the current administration I have to question again what happens when the old machine is not oiled? Doesn't it grind to a halt?

The fact that there was still $9.2M left on the table speaks volumes.

[brizee]

Dave Bing is a waste of a good fuck.

His mama should have tossed that nut against the wall.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I am not defending the loss of this money, the Bing administration's competence, or the worthiness of federal and state anti-povertry programs [[all good topics, I am just not arguing them here and now), but I want to make one important point: DETROIT SHOULD PROCEED AT ALL TIMES LIKE IT WILL NOT GET HELP FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES. If it gets help, great. But such help is never certain or consistent, and the lack of such assistance is not the cause of Detroit's problems. Can it help fix them, maybe. But it's not the cause. You don't make your household budget on the assumption that you'll get a big inheritance, do you? No, you plan your life according to what you do have and can control. If you get something else, then it's a bonus, and you should responsibly handle it.

Also, outside money ALWAYS has strings attached, and those strings can be very destructive [[even if not intentionally). Example: if Detroit wanted to give or nominally sell public housing units to their residents, it would have to pay back, with interest, the amount of money the feds chipped in. Fiscally, it is in the city's interest to keep people in public housing in that public housing. Bad for the tenants, perhaps, but better for the city budget. How does that make sense? The original intent seems to make sense- to keep cities from "flipping" the units to make a profit off of federal taxpayers- but the reality is terrible. I think it makes sense in a hundred ways to allow a tenant who proves they have personal responsibility and a job, the ability to own their home [[and one day, sell it) and be on their way to upward mobility. But we keep people down, because of the strings attached to federal money.

[Blueidone]

That's because the city's Human Services Department, which has been under an FBI investigation since May following Free Press stories of misspending and mismanagement, fell far short of its goal of spending $33 million on weatherizing more than 5,000 homes in three years.
With only about three months left before the Jan. 31 deadline to spend the money, the city has used just $19 million to weatherize 3,050 homes, according to Mayor Dave Bing's office.
Hoping to help more Detroiters by the deadline, the state forced the city to forfeit $9.2 million of weatherization funds in April and July and handed $5 million to the Michigan Community Action Agency Association, which will sprint to distribute the money to as many homeowners as possible, MCAAA Director Jim Crisp said Monday.


There was actually $14 million left on the table. $9.2 million went back. $5 million went to MCAAA.

I don't know about other contractors, but our company could have handled more houses, as long as we were getting paid. But they are so slow paying that a normal business cannot survive when you don't receive payments for 90 days or more.

There was a question about the counties getting they money...Most counties got their own funds. I know for sure that Oakland, Macomb and Wayne did. But for some reason, the City of Detroit got their own funds, away from the County of Wayne. The Department of Human Services was administering this program. I could tell you hours worth of horror stories about how they messed up over and over again. If someone wants the specifics, let me know. But suffice it to say that they were so bogged down in paperwork and losing that paperwork over and over again I can understand why they were slow. I will also say that whoever is doing their bookkeeping and paying their bills should go back to school and learn how to add and subtract.
Out of 20 invoices sent in, not one...NOT ONE...came back with the payment equalling the amount due. And THEY set the rates that contractors are paid and what work is going to be done.

But I'm sure they didn't have any problem paying the invoices for the new furniture in the Director's office

[MidTownMs]

Dave Bing is a waste of a good fuck.

His mama should have tossed that nut against the wall.

Now tell us how you really feel?