APPROPRIATIONS NOTES

The House Appropriations Committee, which hopes to bring HUD's appropriations bill (HR 4194) to the floor this week, approved an amendment to its FY 1999 HUD spending bill that would increase the nationwide floor on FHA loans from 38% to 48% of the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit, and establishes a new ceiling on FHA loans from the existing 75% to 87% of the conforming loan limit. As a result, FHA's mortgage insurance limits will range from $109,032 to $197,620 providing homeownership opportunities to an additional 25,000 to 35,000 new homebuyers annually. The Senate version contains the same loan limits.

The House Appropriations Committee terminated the Corporation for National Community Service (Americorps), one of President Clinton's pet projects. The Senate bill (S 2168) would provide $425.5 million for Americorps. In FY 1998, the program received $428.5 million. The Committee also funded Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) at $80 million, its FY 1998 level.

In other areas, the Senate Appropriations Committee asked HUD to provide a semi-annual report to Congress of its 2020 Management Reform Plan, including an assessment of how staff resources are being used to meet program needs, with the first report being due to the Committee on April 1, 1999. The Committee is concerned over the component of the plan that calls for reducing HUD staff to 7,500 by 2002.

The Empowerment Zone funding request is included in the HHS-Labor-Education bill. This bill is yet untitled. The Senate has not addressed this bill yet and the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the draft from the Appropriations subcommittee. Included in HUD's budgetary request is $1.7 billion to fund 15 new Empowerment Zones. The FY 1999 request did not include funds for Enterprise Communities. We may have an indication of the likelihood those funds will make it into the House bill by the end of this week. HUD has scheduled an Empowerment Zone briefing this Wednesday, July 15, 1998 in Washington.

SENATE DELAYS ACTION ON HUD/VA BILL

Haggling over amending the FY 1999 HUD/VA bill (S 2168) to include managed care language, led Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) to temporarily pull the bill from floor consideration last week. It was Lott's intent to complete Senate action on S 2168 before the House returned this week. That did not happen. It is unclear when the Senate will again resume debate on HUD's bill. As previously mentioned, the House is scheduled to take floor action on July 15,1998.

BUDGET RESOLUTION

As the appropriations process proceeds towards completion, the big question on everyone's mind is; "Will there be a budget resolution this year? And if so, what affect will it have on appropriations bills that have already gone to floor vote in both houses?" This year is an unusual year, even if not all that uncommon. The House passed its resolution in June which cuts federal spending $101 billion over five years. The purpose of these cuts is to finance a tax cut which is focused on reducing the "marriage tax penalty." The Senate budget resolution calls for no tax cut. If and when a joint resolution is completed and it calls for domestic discretionary spending cuts for FY 1999, it is speculated that most of the cuts will be backended, as it is an election year. The HUD/VA or any of the domestic spending bills could need to be reworked since these spending bills are moving faster than the completion of the budget resolution and are not taking into consideration the tax cuts called for in the House Budget Resolution.

The following 1999 HUD Budget table has been revised to include the latest appropriations information.

* $80 Million in Lead-based Paint funds are not listed as a CDBG set-aside in the House report. It appears that the House wants these funds to be a separate program outside of CDBG, which is what the administration requested. The Senate specifically identified them as a set-aside of $60 million within CDBG.

^ Brownfields is a set-aside in CDBG in the House. The Senate funded Brownfields as a separate program outside of CDBG as the administration requested.

# SHOP is a program that requires authorization language before it can be considered a set-aside in CDBG.
 

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/JOB ACCESS FUNDING AVAILABLE IN "TEA-21"

Signed by President Clinton on July 9, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century or "TEA-21" authorizes funding of $215 billion over the next six years for investment in the nation's roads and transit systems. The bill authorizes $750 million over five years (FY 1999-2003) for the Access to Jobs Program for job access grants, which are intended to provide funding to local jurisdictions and nonprofit organizations to expand transportation services for individuals moving from welfare to work. Funding for the Access to Jobs Program would be distributed based on a 60/20/20 formula. Urban areas with populations above 200,000 will receive 60% of the funds, while urban areas with populations less than 200,000 will receive 20% and rural areas will also receive 20%. Monies would be targeted to projects that provide transportation services to individuals who are receiving welfare assistance, specifically, transportation services designed to transport welfare recipients to and from jobs and other activities related to employment. Advocates are pushing for this amount of funding from appropriators in both the House and Senate.

THE SENATE TO TAKE UP FY 1999 SPENDING FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

The Senate Appropriations Committee will take up where the Subcommittee left off and mark up the $47.5 billion bill which will add money to the first year of "TEA 21" for highways, mass transit and airline programs. Under this bill, the Federal Highway Administration would receive $27 billion, up from $23.5 billion in FY 1998, and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) would receive $5.36 billion, up from $4.8 billion in FY 1998. This bill would give the Secretary of Transportation more flexibility to divide up FTA funding which covers mass transit programs. The mass transit account for new projects would be increased from $800 million to $902.8 million. The bill would provide the Federal Aviation Administration $9.9 billion, up from $9.1 billion for this year.

DISCUSSIONS CONTINUE ON PUBLIC AND ASSISTED HOUSING REFORM

The House and Senate have been working for weeks to reach compromise on several provisions within their respective public and assisted housing reform bills (H.R. 2/S 462). It now appears that Rep. Lazio (R-NY) and Senator Mack (R-FL) have come to agreement on most of the "thorny" issues, with discussion continuing at the staff level between the House, the Senate and HUD to reach final compromise. There have been discussions between Rep. Lazio and Rep. Leach (R-IA) around securing a rule that would allow them to attach the public and assisted housing reform bill as an amendment to the HUD/VA bill during conference. Congressional staffers have indicated their optimism for reaching final agreement within the next couple of weeks.

SENATE SET TO VOTE ON "TAKINGS" LEGISLATION

The Senate could vote on H.R. 1534 -- the Citizens Access to Justice Act -- as early as July 13. The controversial legislation allows developers to sue cities and counties in federal court before going through long-established local land use procedures and appeals in local and state courts. Senator Leahy (D-VT) and other senators who are opposed to the legislation have vowed to filibuster the proposed legislation if it is considered by the Senate.

U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS RELEASES WELFARE SURVEY

The United States Conference of Mayors recently released a 125-city survey on The Welfare Challenges Facing America's Cities. Key issues identified by the survey, which was conducted in June of this year, include: (1) Officials in 53 percent of the cities believe that most welfare recipients who need work will be able to find jobs for which they are qualified over the next year. However, 76% of the cities surveyed believe that most welfare recipients who are hired into entry-level jobs will not earn high enough wages to escape poverty; (2) In 65% of the cities, officials believe that some welfare recipients are unable to find work because they lack the skills and are not ready for work, not because there are not enough entry-level jobs, (3) Only 34% of the cities surveyed believe they are receiving their fair share of state resources to meet the welfare reform challenge, (4) In 60% of the cities surveyed, officials say that the private sector is actively engaged in meeting the welfare reform challenge in their community, (5) Officials in 60% of the cities believe that the greatest challenge in connecting people to work is concentrated in particular neighborhoods in distress, and (6) 43% of the cities surveyed indicated that child care is the service which is most lacking, but needed to connect welfare recipients and other low income people to job opportunities, followed by public transportation (28% of the cities say public transportation is inadequate), and job training (24% of the cities say more job training is needed).

HUD NOTICES

HUD Holds 2nd Best Practices Conference. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development held its second "Best Practices in Housing and Community Development Symposium" on June 29-July 2 in Charlotte, NC. A total of 277 communities across the country received HUD's John J. Gunther Blue Ribbon "Best Practices" Award for outstanding management of programs funded by HUD. The awards honor state and local governments that exhibit the highest level of performance in administering HUD-funded programs to expand the supply of affordable housing, create jobs, strengthen local economies, fight housing discrimination, reduce homelessness, increase homeownership and accomplish other goals to improve communities. Several of NCDA's members were honored with this award. The City of Columbia, SC received a best practices award for its "Continuum of Care" homeless assistance system; Hildago County, Texas received a best practices award for its Housing Rehabilitation Program and the City of Quincy, MA received a best practices award for its IDIS and reporting system, to name a few. Award winners were nominated through their HUD field offices.

PERFORMANCE GUIDELINES FOR FY 1997 AVAILABLE

If you have not received your guidelines for reporting on CPD funding, you can access them through HUD's website. If you are "online," the Boston HUD website has the guidelines uploaded. NCDA members who are online have access to the camber list can get these guidelines though the New England Regional members.

IDIS UPDATE

For more information on the IDIS training schedule, please contact Tonya, Inc. at 202-289-8100.
 

NCDA NOTES

THE 1999 NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT WEEK POSTER COMPETITION HAS BEEN EXTENDED

As the first step of this year-long effort, we invite NCDA's members to participate in the poster design competition. If you, or someone you know, would like to submit a design for the 13^th annual celebration of National Community Development Week and the 25^th anniversary of the CDBG program campaign, please provide a color rendering of your poster concept to Chandra Western, no later than September 3, 1998. This deadline is hard and fast, as staff will be leaving Washington for Newport, Rhode Island for the Executive Symposium on September 9, 1998. For more information on the poster design competition, please contact Chandra Western at NCDA.

HOME TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FUNDS AVAILABLE THROUGH NCDA

NCDA recently received funding from HUD to fund its highly successful HOME Refresher Course within its regional membership areas. Up to $1,500 is available to assist four NCDA member regions sponsor a HOME Refresher Course. If you are interested in sponsoring a HOME Refresher Course, please contact Vicki Watson at 202-887-5532. Funds must be spent by December 1998.

POSTING JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS

NCDA staff is ever willing to include position vacancies of member communities in the NCDA Washington Report. To better assist members as well as staff, we ask member communities to e-mail position vacancies to Karen Means, michael@ncdaonline.org, whenever possible. If you are not set up for e-mail, please fax them to Karen. An electronic copy makes it easier to post the position on NCDAonline.

NCDA TECHNOLOGY NEWS
 

NCDAonline UPDATE!!! NCDA staff have received many calls and e-mails from members related to logging on to the website with their new passwords and user IDs. If you did not log on with your temporary password and user ID, or send in your commitment to pay dues before June 30, 1998, you will not be able to access the Members Only section of the website. If this is the case for you, simply e-mail Chandra Western at chandra@ncdaonline.org. She will provide you with the information necessary to get into the Members Only section as well as personalize your password and user ID.  As we continue to improve the system, NCDAonline will provide more services and links to other sites and allow members to communicate more effectively with each other and NCDA staff. Our investigation into how we can provide members with membership dues discounts if they use the NCDAonline to receive NCDA mailings and publications, indicates that only about 25-30 percent of NCDA members are taking advantage of the website. At this time, is not cost effective for useto provide those members with a discount if they use NCDAonline exclusively to receive mailings and other publications. As more members get online, we will address this issue then.

 
FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICES

July 1, 1998. Portfolio Reengineering -- Fiscal Year 1998 Transition Program Guidelines. This notice provides guidance for the FY98 Transition Program. It also identifies projects that will continue to proceed under the FY97 Demonstration Program unmodified by these transitional provisions. Finally, it clarifies HUD policy concerning delegation of responsibilities to joint venture designees. For further information, contact Dan Sullivan, Office of Multifamily Housing, 202-708-2300, ext. 2062.

July 8, 1998. Super Notice of Funding Availability for National Competition Programs (National SuperNOFA); Reopening of Application Period for FHIP and Housing Counseling. The purpose of this notice is to reopen the application periods for the education/training components of the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), and the Housing Counseling Program under the National SuperNOFA published in the Federal Register on April 30, 1998. This notice changes the application due date from July 7 to August 11. For further information, contact Ivy Davis, Director, FHIP/FHAP Support Division at 202-708-0800.

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