EOB may have to give money back

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, June 21, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

The Economic Opportunity Board has not been able to show the federal government that nearly $500,000 that the local nonprofit organization received to house the chronically homeless was used for that purpose -- meaning it may have to give some or all of the money back, an EOB official said.

In addition, the EOB overcharged at least 30 poor people nearly $14,500 in rent during a two-year period, said Brian Sagert, administrator of the organization's housing division since mid-February. The EOB must find those people and give them the money back in the coming weeks, he said.

"It's apparent that, based on the facts, the program wasn't managed properly," Sagert said.

The EOB is the Las Vegas Valley's largest private agency using public money. Most of it's nearly $60 million budget is provided by taxpayers, but in recent months federal and state officials have scrutinized the agency's operations of a variety of programs because of irregularities and a lack of accountability.

The details on the program to help the homeless came out of the EOB's response to a Housing and Urban Development Department review. The program received a total of $473,000 in 2001 and 2003 to provide housing for the chronically homeless plus services such as drug and alcohol addiction treatment and job training.

Now that the EOB's response has confirmed much of HUD's findings, "it's their (the federal agency's) determination as to whether or not they want to recapture funds -- which could be up to the full grant amount," Sagert said.

As well, he said, it's possible that the EOB may be barred from applying for the same grant for the 2005-2006 period.

Larry Bush, spokesman for HUD, said the federal agency will take up to 30 days to analyze the information the EOB has submitted, and will not allow the nonprofit organization to draw any funds in the meantime.

The review, done in March and April, covered the program's activities in 2002 and 2003. It was the third review of the EOB since January, all of which were prompted by financial, management and program problems.

A review commissioned by the state, which oversees the organization's largest program -- a $20 million-plus grant to help poor families with child care -- resulted in the board being broken down from 15 to 6 members.

Other nonprofit organizations have notified the state that they are interested in running the child care program, and a transfer of the program may occur next year.

The results of the third review, conducted in April by federal Head Start personnel, are still pending.

Sagert was hired to oversee the EOB's housing division in the midst of these reviews, meaning the problems pointed out in the HUD review occurred under the previous administrator -- Angela Quinn, who is now the president of Boys and Girls Club of Las Vegas.

Sagert's response to HUD, sent June 16, included systems to improve oversight of the program in the future, should it continue. Those systems include more comprehensive intake procedures to document if those who the program is helping are truly chronically homeless -- which the federal government defines as someone who has been without a place to live for a year or four times in three years.

Sagert also told HUD he would keep better track of how rent is charged to those who participate in the program, which is also based on federal guidelines.

The EOB's response says the organization will be sending out notices by certified mail to the last known addresses of past tenants who were charged too much for rent, as well as placing advertisements in local newspapers and contacting local homeless shelters.

The total amount overcharged -- $14,403 -- includes amounts ranging from several hundred per person up to $2,000, Sagert said.

Clients of the program are housed in nine EOB-owned apartments at 415 Adams Ave. and 618 W. Washington Ave., so the rent money provided by the federal government went into the EOB's coffers.

HUD also found that the EOB couldn't demonstrate how employee salaries and benefits were charged to specific grants.

Sagert said records he searched supplied a partial response to that finding -- "we can document the amount of hours employees spent working in the program, we just can't demonstrate what they did."

It is unclear if the money that went to employee salaries and benefits will also have to be returned to HUD, he said.

The only HUD finding that Sagert disagreed with referred to overcharging the grant for renting an office. The EOB's response says the organization billed the grant "no more than $371.75 per month" for the program's office -- much less than the nearly $5,000 HUD alleged.

When HUD's review results were revealed by the Sun earlier this month, Linda Lera Randle-El, a leading local homeless advocate and director of a nonprofit organization that receives no government funds called Straight from the Streets, said that such reviews should be done more frequently. The last HUD review before this one was done in 2001.

Sagert said he would welcome more scrutiny if the EOB receives the money again.

"Anytime you get looked at to make sure a program is running right, it helps to know if you're using the funds to serve the people who are in need," he said.