Tuesday, May 09, 2006
something seems off...
Maybe this is nothing, but it's worth mentioning.
The City of Tucson Community Development Advisory Committee recently made its Human Service Funding Recommendations to Mayor and Council.
With $8,917,834 in requests from social service organizations and $3,594,753 to give, many requests were bound to go unfulfilled. Many of the requests that were funded were not funded for the full amount. (Full disclosure: I work for an organization that received zero funding for three requests)
With so much need for this vital funding and so much competition, why on earth would the CDAC recommend that any of the organizations who submitted proposals receive more money than they requested?
This is exactly what happened with two organizations. The first only received a recommendation of $1 more than requested, which doesn't really merit any more comment than that. The other organization to receive more than it requested was Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, which requested $48,082 for a "public housing transportation program" for older adults and people with disabilities. CDAC recommended awarding LSSS $50,000 for this program. This $1,918 difference may seem inconsequential - and it probably is - but it at the very least gives the impression that LSSS is the recipient of an unfair windfall that shouldn't have been awarded in the first place. To be fair, LSSS submitted another proposal for $53,656 that was only funded at $39,250. If CDAC wanted LSSS to receive more money, why not just add that $1,918 to the $39,250 for the other program?
Like I said, this is probably nothing consequential. However, this does raise some concerns about the accounting skills of the City staff. It also calls into question the oversight being provided by CDAC (or lack thereof). This was a fairly obvious disconnect to catch, so why didn't this Committee catch it?
I'm going to continue looking into this (I'm a regular Veronica Mars, after all), but wouldn't it be nice if some intrepid local reporter started asking some questions too? It's not the $2,000 that's necessarily cause for major concern, it's what other accounting errors might be falling through the cracks - and on a much larger scale.
The City of Tucson Community Development Advisory Committee recently made its Human Service Funding Recommendations to Mayor and Council.
With $8,917,834 in requests from social service organizations and $3,594,753 to give, many requests were bound to go unfulfilled. Many of the requests that were funded were not funded for the full amount. (Full disclosure: I work for an organization that received zero funding for three requests)
With so much need for this vital funding and so much competition, why on earth would the CDAC recommend that any of the organizations who submitted proposals receive more money than they requested?
This is exactly what happened with two organizations. The first only received a recommendation of $1 more than requested, which doesn't really merit any more comment than that. The other organization to receive more than it requested was Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, which requested $48,082 for a "public housing transportation program" for older adults and people with disabilities. CDAC recommended awarding LSSS $50,000 for this program. This $1,918 difference may seem inconsequential - and it probably is - but it at the very least gives the impression that LSSS is the recipient of an unfair windfall that shouldn't have been awarded in the first place. To be fair, LSSS submitted another proposal for $53,656 that was only funded at $39,250. If CDAC wanted LSSS to receive more money, why not just add that $1,918 to the $39,250 for the other program?
Like I said, this is probably nothing consequential. However, this does raise some concerns about the accounting skills of the City staff. It also calls into question the oversight being provided by CDAC (or lack thereof). This was a fairly obvious disconnect to catch, so why didn't this Committee catch it?
I'm going to continue looking into this (I'm a regular Veronica Mars, after all), but wouldn't it be nice if some intrepid local reporter started asking some questions too? It's not the $2,000 that's necessarily cause for major concern, it's what other accounting errors might be falling through the cracks - and on a much larger scale.
