SEJ Meeting Report
I've just returned from my first ever monthly meeting of the S. Ellen Jones Neighborhood Association and I must say, I was impressed. Attendance was slight due in part to the weather but those who were there were as friendly a group of folks you'll find anywhere.
The speaker was one Danny Flanigan of New Directions Housing Corporation. He gave us an overview of their Repair Affair program for Louisville and Southern Indiana. It is basically a program that uses grant money, local business donations, and community volunteers to do home repairs for the elderly, indigent, and handicapped people in Jefferson Co., Ky and Clark & Floyd Co. in Indiana.
The eligibility requirements for consideration is as follows;
A) The candidate must either own the home or be in the process of buying it.
B) They must be single.
C) Their annual income must be $ 20,000 or less.
D) They must be 60 years of age.
The goal of the program is to repair 150+ homes per year and in the process improve the quality of life for those who by no falut of their own, other than growing old, cannot do for themselves. By using neighborhood volunteers, both professional and inexperienced, it also serves to bring people together to complete a project. The far reaching potential ramifications of this alone can do nothing but good for any community!
The breakdown is about 115 homes in Ky. and 40 to 50 in In.
The repair list includes minor plumbing & electrical, painting, wheelchair ramps, window & door replacement, and roofing to name a few. The candidates are recommended by individuals, neighborhood asociations, churches and others. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
Danny was invited to the April 4th Forum and seemed interested in attending. for more information he can be reached at 502-371-4906.
See you all the 4th!
posted by Highwayman @ 7:43 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Thanks for the report. It sounds as if some people have caught on to the concept of cooperation and collective action.
Thanks for the report, Highwayman. Sounds like a worthy project and there is no question but that it is needed in NA.
Vis your reaction to the mayor's comments Thursday, I think this is more a public relations matter than a real problem. I recognize how it sounds when the mayor points out that an accounting problem preceded his tenure. It would be far better if he could convey that fact as an aside, rather than as his first point.
In fact, the rattlesnake in this woodpile is the degree to which the council has refused (last term, too) to give the controller's office the necessary funding to tackle the problems.
Kay Garry says it will take until summer to develop a plan. Then, the DLGF has to approve write-offs and other accounting measures to bring the accounts back into balance. The capital accounts imbalance is a tough one. If city records in 2002 and 2003 show a piece of equipment on the books, but that equipment has gone missing, the new administration can't simply declare it found, nor declare it written off.
The attempt to take pre-existing deficiencies and attribute them to this mayor is nakedly related to electoral strategy. The administration is hamstrung - damned if they point out its pre-existence, and damned if they don't.
So far as I can tell, the city is accurately reporting an ongoing mess in its accounts. The scandal would be if they were deviating from DLGF rules to make things look better (accounting-wise) than they actually are.
Weaker minds seize on negative balances and manufacture in their minds a conspiracy. While not acceptable as a long-term matter, these discrepancies are not out of the ordinary in municipal finance.
In fact, NA's accounts are now being managed better than before, and under the duress of a pre-existing overspending by the previous administration, the Garner administration took NA through the storm of a $2.8 million shortfall in 2005.
Is it any wonder that from his seat on council that the mayor decided he could do a better job than the then-incumbent? There is no question but that he has, in spite of having to weather a hostile contingent on the council.
You've been there. If everyone could and would pay attention, they'd see who is doing their homework, and who is not.
How would you explain the audit to the council? Would you remind them that the vast majority of the cited deficiencies are carryovers from past years?
Tis true what All4Word says about capital asset audits. Been there and done that. It's not much fun when an auditor hands you a list of equipment that you've never seen or heard of and then demands that you account for it.
Explaining why someone you've never communicated with discarded a piece of equipment without reporting it properly several years before you took control of inventory is impossible. The only thing you can really do is to begin the long process of ridding the inventory list of outdated entries and make sure that future record keeping is better. Even then, your reward for cleaning up the mess is having the losses recorded on your watch. It took two years to fully correct the situation I was placed in and it didn't entail anywhere near the amount of money or equipment the city has on its books.
What's not been communicated well enough is the strategy for rectifying the list with the assets still in existence. Assuming there is one, the Mayor's office would do well to inform the public of what it is, rather than simply recounting the problem.
The good news is that, even with the pre-exisiting problems, the state was able to actually perform an accurate audit from 2004 records. That in itself is a major improvement over 2002 and 2003.
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