Mr. Joseph D'Agosta, Acting General Deputy Counsel
for Community Planning and Development
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 Seventh Street, SW - Room 7100
Washington, DC 20410

Dear Mr. D'Agosta:

This letter is in response to many of my member's grave concerns related to the newly instituted monthly reporting requirements for CDBG grantees. CDBG grantees are being asked to report on the number of housing units rehabilitated and the number of jobs created/retained in the preceding month. As I understand it, HUD field offices are requiring this increased level of reporting, on paper, so that they can submit their monthly performance reports to HUD headquarters as it relates to their Business Operating Plans. Forgive my ignorance, but wasn't IDIS supposed to reduce the amount of paper reporting and provide HUD field staff and headquarters with up-to-the-minute information on expenditures and activities completed by grantees? Wasn't IDIS supposed to be a monitoring tool to get just the information field staff are requesting grantees submit to them monthly, and on paper? Wasn't the reason given for the creation of IDIS because Congress and the general public needed to know about every dollar spent on CPD programs, when, where, and how it was spent? Didn't NCDA and CPD grantees suggest that standardized, monthly reports would be a much less expensive alternative to IDIS, and still provide HUD and Congress with the information that was needed? Why can't the field offices get the information they need from IDIS?

Judging from the e-mail traffic I am receiving on this issue, this new reporting requirement is not an unfounded rumor. I need to let my members know the real story here, otherwise the good faith efforts NCDA and the other public interest groups have shown in trying to work with HUD on the problems of IDIS, have been for naught. My members are so upset about this that many have already contacted their Congressional delegations. I feel there can be a reasonable solution to this problem without going the Congressional route. Let us not come to an impasse on this, please. NCDA cannot in good conscience support HUD on this. We offer our assistance in resolving this issue.

Respectfully,

Chandra Western
Acting Director

cc: Cardell Cooper, Assistant Secretary for CPD
Kenneth Williams, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Grants Programs
Nadab Bynum, Director of Field Operations for CPD