Danielle:

NACCED’s 1999/2000 Annual Report.

We can discuss the pictures when we sit down. I will put the word “picture” and reference it if I’d like to insert a picture.

NACCED

Blurb from 1998-99 Annual Report (inside front page). Kill all the bullet points, and therefore the colon and “including” that start off the section.

NACCED Staff

NACCED is managed by Smith, Bucklin & Associates, a nationally known association management firm.

Executive Director

John C. Murphy

Community and Economic Development Director

Leslie Suárez

HOME Project Coordinator

Jonathan Padget

Administrative Assistant

Tracy McCrimmon

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

(PICTURE – email attachment) Not too big and the caption is: Randy S. Patterson, 1999-2000 President, Executive Director, County of Lancaster, Pennsylvania

It has been a challenging year for the National Association for County Community and Economic Development (NACCED). On behalf of the Officers, Board of Directors and NACCED staff, it is my pleasure to present this report on the Association’s activities throughout the past 12 months.

NACCED’s mission is “to be the leader in helping America’s counties implement an effective response to their affordable housing, community and economic development needs.” The Association strives to achieve this mission by: 1) being a principal resource for members in helping design and implement successful affordable housing, community and economic development programs; 2) being the resource to members and the National Association of Counties (NACo) for affordable housing, community and economic development policy development and implementation; 3) expanding and strengthening our relationships with NACo, related NACo affiliates, relevant federal agencies and other national advocacy groups who share an interest in the constituency NACCED serves; and 4) fostering a mutual appreciation of the diverse and common challenges and concerns of urban, suburban, and rural counties and associate members.

In the following pages we have chronicled the work of the Association’s Board, Committees, special task forces, and staff directed to achieving these four goals. In some respects, this has been a most rigorous year. Despite strong bipartisan support for level or increased appropriations for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME and Emergency Shelter Grant Programs, and to increase the caps in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Private Activity Bond programs, current proposals will cut entitlement funding and possibly delay increases in the caps. Our efforts to delay the implementation of the new lead-based paint regulations, and revise them, have yet to bear fruit.

Conversely, this year’s work on lead-based paint issues has strengthened our working relationship with other national advocacy groups. We have been successful in having Congress acknowledge the programmatic and financial implications of the lead-based paint regulations, to the point where we were able to have the House include language in the appropriations bill requesting HUD to review the matter. Due to our efforts, HUD has also finally acknowledged these problems and has agreed to continue negotiations to address our concerns and needs.

We have strengthened our working relationship with HUD to ensure that we have an active voice in the development of the new Department Grants Management System (DGMS).

We continued to work closely with NACo to influence federal legislation affecting community and economic development, affordable housing, and homeless programs.

We worked closely with HUD, to provide technical assistance to urban counties having difficulty meeting the timeliness standard for drawdown of CDBG funds. Based on recent reports from HUD, significant progress has been made in reducing the number of communities that exceed the standard.

This year, NACCED members will gather in the New Jersey Meadowlands for the 25th Annual County Community and Economic Development Conference to mark a milestone in NACCED’s continuing effort to meet membership training and professional development needs. Throughout the year other training and peer-to-peer match opportunities were made available to members through the HOME Technical Assistance Project. NACCED staff continued to provide technical assistance to members on a variety of issues related to implementing community and economic development, affordable housing and supportive housing programs.

During the past 25 years, NACCED has served as an advocate for the interests of urban, large, medium and small counties across the country within the halls of Congress and with federal agencies in order to provide needed training and educational opportunities, technical assistance and encourage the sharing of ideas among members.

It has been a privilege to serve as President of NACCED during the past year. I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to serve you. NACCED is an organization respected for the quality and dedication of our staff and members. I would like to thank the Board, Committee Chairs, Committee members and staff for their considerable support and hard work. It is through those efforts that our association has been able to remain strong, grow and prosper.

Best wishes for the coming year.

Sincerely,

(you have his signature from the NACCED Insights Newsletter)

Signature

Randy S. Patterson

President

POLICY DEVELOPMENT & REGULATORY ACTIVITY (Background shading of a scroll or something of the sort. I don’t like the current two column set-up for the whole annual report. Suggestions?)

Public Policy in the Making

  • As in past years, NACCED’s Board of Directors, committees and staff played a primary role in helping to formulate and implement the policies of the National Association of Counties (NACo) with respect to federal legislation affecting community development, economic development, and affordable housing. As is customary, relevant NACCED committees formulated resolutions for consideration by the NACo Community and Economic Development Steering Committee at both the legislative and annual conferences on a variety of pending legislation.
  • Much of the past year was spent protecting and increasing funding for core HUD housing and community development programs. NACCED members and staff assisted NACo in convincing Congress to increase FY 2000 funding for Community Development Block Grants by $50 million over FY 1999 to $4.8 billion and freezing HOME at $1.6 billion. But, while funding for CDBG increased and despite NACCED’s efforts in opposition, the proliferation of set-asides for small, often unrelated, programs grew from $526.8 million to $560 million.

President Clinton’s FY 2001 budget requested a $100 million increase for CDBG to $4.9 billion and a modest $50 million increase in HOME to $1.65 billion. However, Congress approved the FY 2001 concurrent budget resolution that set overall caps on domestic discretionary spending. Because the republican congressional leadership determined that the resolution would fit within the caps set in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the actual allocation of spending authority to the HUD Subcommittee was substantially less than provided in the FY 2000 resolution.

  • On April 13, 2000 Roslyn Phillips, Chief or the Community Development Division in Jacksonville, FL representing NACCED, NACo, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National Community Development Association, appeared before the House HUD Appropriations Subcommittee in support of increased funding for CDBG, HOME, and preservation of the existing Section 8-supported affordable housing stock. Armed with resolutions which were approved at the February NACo Legislative Conference she argued for increasing FY 2001 funding for CDBG by $200 million to $5 billion and HOME by $200 million to $1.8 billion. She noted that this year marks the 26th anniversary of the CDBG program, arguably the nation’s most successful domestic program, and it also marks the 11th anniversary of the HOME program, a complement to, and equally successful as CDBG. She also urged the Subcommittee and the Congress to reduce the set-asides in the CDBG program from the current $560 million to those that have been part of the program since its inception and total $90 million. She also urged the Subcommittee to approve adequate funding to allow below market Section 8 rents to be marked up to market in order to keep this stock in the affordable housing inventory. Despite her persuasive testimony, the House Subcommittee in late July voted to cut funding for CDBG by $250 million and HOME by $20 million to $1.58 billion. Concern was expressed on behalf of the groups regarding the anticipated enormous cost of complying with HUD’s lead-paint hazard reduction rule set to take effect on September 15th, and the actuality that there is a lack of certified contractors in many areas of the country. She urged the Subcommittee to provide additional funding to help local governments comply with the rule. In early June, the House passed H.R. 4635, the FY 2001 HUD appropriations bill. The bill reduced funding for the CDBG program by $300 million to $4.5 billion, largely by eliminating the project-specific set-asides sought by House members. The funding level also reduced formula grants by $60 million. The HOME program was cut by $15 million, to $1.58 billion.
  • NACCED and others have succeeded in getting language into the Committee Report accompanying the appropriations bill expressing the Committee’s concern over the lead-based paint rule. The Committee said it would monitor negotiations between the housing industry and HUD, and reserved the right to take further action if there was no resolution of the industry concerns over cost and the lack of certified contractors. Since NACCED and others have been meeting nearly nonstop with advocacy groups, Hill staff and HUD have been in pursuit of finding relief from the adverse impact of the rule. NACCED is seek a phase-in of the rule, i.e. applying it on a priority basis to households occupied by children under 6, provide an exemption for elderly household where there are no children under six, provide adequate training to public and private staff, and authority for HUD to waive the rule where there is a lack of certified contractors.
  • Again in 1999 - 2000, NACo, NACCED and other supporters of tax incentives to stimulate investment in affordable housing had to expend considerable effort in an attempt to increase the volume caps for tax-exempt private activity bonds and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. H.R. 864 would increase the bond volume cap (which includes the authority to issue Mortgage Revenue Bonds to assist first-time homebuyers and multifamily housing bonds to stimulate production of rental housing) from the current greater of $50 per capita or $150 million per state to the greater of $75 per capita or $225 million per state, was the most widely cosponsored bill in the Congress with 379 members having added their names. H.R. 175 to increase the tax credit cap from its current $1.25 per capita to $1.75 per capita, per state has 376 cosponsors. Companion bills, S. 459 (bonds) and S. 1017 have 80 and 82 Senate cosponsors respectively. This level of co-sponsorship in the House for the bond cap and the tax credit cap increases led House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-TX) to include the increase in a 10-year, $794 billion tax cut bill, which was vetoed by the President in September 1999. Earlier this year, Chairman Archer included a phased increase beginning in 2001 for both volume caps in the tax portion of H.R. 3081, a bill to increase the federal minimum wage. That bill is awaiting a House-Senate conference committee meeting, which may never happen because the Senate version of the wage increase (which does not contain either cap increase) is tied to a controversial bankruptcy reform bill. Because of this, Chairman Archer added the same phased cap increases to H.R.4923, the “Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000,” which passed the house by a margin of 294-27 in late July.

The bill is an amalgam of tax credits to stimulate reinvestment in distressed rural and urban hammered out by President Clinton and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. Under the bill, the bond cap would increase to the greater of $55 per capita or $165 million per state in 2001, $60 per capita or $180 million per state in FY 2002, $65 per capita or $195 million per state in FY 2003, $70 per capita or $210 million per state for each of 2004, 2005, and increasing to $75 per capita or $225 million per state for FY 2007 and thereafter. The tax credit gets a similar phase-in. For FY 2001, it rises from the current $1.25 per capita, per state to $1.35, rising in $.10 increments until 2004 when it would increase in $1.65, $1.70 in 2005 and to $1.75 in 2006, plus an inflation Under the bill, the bond cap would Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Senators Santorum (R-PA) and Robb (D-VA). However, their bills call for the full increases in the caps beginning in 2001.

Action by Senate Appropriations Committee on the HUD bill has been delayed until after Congress returns from the August recess. It is anticipated that Congress will be forced to break the budget caps and provide additional funding for domestic programs, as was the case last year. This would likely mean that funding for CDBG and HOME would be restored. NACCED and others will push for Senate consideration of this legislation after Labor Day. If it retains its narrow focus, the bill stands an excellent chance of being signed by the President.

  • In April 1999 the House Housing Subcommittee approved H.R.1073, a bill proposed by Chairman Lazio to consolidate the McKinney Act’s homeless housing programs into two programs -- one a categorical permanent housing program, the other a formula-driven block grant to states and entitlement counties and cities. The legislation calls for a local homeless planning board to formulate the local homeless needs and resource allocation plan, a required nonfederal match of 50%, and a requirement that at least 51% of the funds be passed through to nonprofit organizations, and a limitation to 35 percent on the amount of funds which may be used for supportive services for the homeless. NACo and NACCED, despite reservation over parts of the bill, urged the House Banking Committee and the full House to pass the bill so as to move it through the legislative process and put pressure on the Senate to act. NACo and NACCED will continue to advocate for a single formula-driven block grant and one that is considerably more flexible in what constitutes eligible non-federal matching funds.
  • In April 2000 the House passed Housing Subcommittee Chairman Rick Lazio’s (R-NY) H.R. 1776, the “American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 2000” by a wide margin. The bill reauthorizes the HOME Investment Partnerships program for five years at an annual funding level of $1.5 billion. Also included is a NACo and NACCED-backed HOME loan guarantee program, similar to the Section 108-loan guarantee program under the Community Development Block Grant program

The bill provides $25 million in grants for of FY 2000 for homeownership zones. It reauthorizes a provision in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 that provided $15 million annually through FY 2003 in grants to state and local governments to create strategies to remove regulatory barriers to affordable housing. It would also require, as a condition of receiving CDBG funds, that communities make a “good faith” effort to remove any regulatory barriers it uncovered. The bill would require that all federal regulations include a housing impact analysis and a certification by the federal agency promulgating the regulation that it will have no significant deleterious impact on the availability of affordable housing. Finally, contained is a provision prohibiting set-asides with the CDBG program, except for Insular Areas and Section 107 special purpose grants.

The Evolution of Regulation

  • Throughout 1999 and 2000, NACCED worked with grantees as they were dealing with challenges and issues surrounding the Integrated Disbursement Information System (IDIS). Several meetings have been held with key HUD staff on member issues and how to combat the numerous challenges that arise on the system due to downloading and using reports, tracking program funds accurately, receiving technical assistance from headquarters/field staff as well as contractors, and how to incorporate Community 2020. NACCED continues to be an active participant on the IDIS list serve and facilitates information back to grantee members.

HUD’s new DGMS was introduced in early 1999 to grantees and is proposed to be implemented within the months to come. It will be available on the World Wide Web as well as being a Windows-based product. Along with several other national organizations, NACCED has addressed the following issues: including an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) component, simplifying the project and activity areas by use of a pull down menu, and providing HUD the minimum amount of information they need in order to report back to Congress.

Additionally, NACCED’s Technology Task Force has and will continue discussions with HUD staff concerning member issues facing both DGMS and IDIS: Carlos Jackson (Chair), Los Angeles County, CA; Brian Cramer, Tarrant County, TX; Lynn Feveryear, Salt Lake County, UT; Craig Goebel, Gwinnet County, GA; Terry Gonzalez, Los Angeles County, CA; Ken Pick, Berks County, PA; Randy Patterson, Lancaster County, PA; Marie Randall, Anne Arundel County, MD; Patricia Ward, Tarrant County, TX.