Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Iowa’s weatherization program, which seeks to help low-income residents reduce their home energy consumption and lower their utility bills, typically receives $15 million in annual funding. That money — paid for in equal parts by the U.S. Department of Energy, state-regulated utilities and federal energy efficiency grants — can be counted on to weatherize about 2,000 of the nearly 85,000 homes per year that qualify for help.
(Photo courtesy Recovery.gov)
So when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed early this year, adding $6.2 billion to the federal weatherization program, Iowa officials realized the state would see a dramatic increase in funding. And the additional $80 million for the state means another 10,000 Iowa homes could benefit from the program.
But the huge influx of funds has some worried that federal, state and local agencies will have trouble allocating them and conducting sufficient oversight. Because the money must be spent quickly, the worry is that there could be waste or fraud, and because the massive funding increase cannot possibly be matched with an equal hiring increase, many predict there simply won’t be enough hands on deck locally to oversee the program’s expansion.
In Iowa, the program is administered by a small state agency called the Division of Community Action Agencies, which is part of the Department of Human Rights.
The division administrator, William Brand, said the federal recovery act has strict guidelines to avoid waste and fraud. And while his agency has only been able to add four new members to their staff of five to help with inspection and oversight, local agencies that operate the program have been able to hire additional staff as well.
“Local agencies have to assure to us that they are going to follow the rules, and we require a monthly program report for work that has been approved,” Brand said. “Our agency also does onsite monitoring to go through their books to go through receipts, payroll records, all sorts of records to make sure everything is in compliance.”
The state also does random on-site inspections at homes that are weatherized to ensure quality work is being done.
Money for the weatherization program goes directly to the Division of Community Action Agencies, which in turn funnels the money to 18 nonprofit agencies around the state — in Polk County, for instance, the agency is government run. Those agencies handle the application process and the initial energy audit of the homes.
When it comes time to do the actual work on the home, some local agencies hire local contractors to do all the work on a competitive bid process. Others do some of the work themselves.
“Local agencies are responsible for reporting all their expenditures of funds on a monthly basis,” Brand said. “Each local agency must also contract with an independent auditing firm, and the results of audits are provided to us for our review.”
Some worried the state and local agencies wouldn’t be able to ramp up fast enough to match the increase in funding. But for the first time the weatherization program had to comply with the federal Davis-Bacon Act, which says the local prevailing wage must be paid. That delayed dispersal of funding through the summer, while the U.S. Department of Labor determined county-by-county prevailing wage levels across the nation, giving local agencies some time to train new staff and implement oversight regulations.
“We’ve been gearing up for a while on this,” Brand said. “It’s a very accountable system.”
A looming deadline
The money must be spent by March 30, 2012, something Brand said won’t be an issue.
“We’ve got such a long waiting list, we know the money will easily be spent,” he said.
Aiding in that effort is the fact that income levels for qualifying families were raised from 200 percent of poverty level to 300 percent. Homes are prioritized based on energy consumption and whether young children, the elderly or the disabled live there.
“Those homes go to the front of the line,” Brand said.
A report released earlier this year by the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project found that families who were able to participate in the weatherization program saw the share of their family budget dedicated to energy cost substantially reduced.
“It literally is a great economic stimulus program, because it will create jobs, put more work in the community for contractors and will result in energy efficiency that helps low-income families who are strapped with high energy bills,” Brand said.
Jon Murphy, director of the Office of State-Federal Relations and co-chairman of Iowa’s Recovery Act task force, said another benefit of the additional funding is that it clears the way for families in the future to get assistance that otherwise would have been left out.
“Unfortunately in Iowa, we have a long line of people who have been waiting for the weatherization program to come to them,” he said. “This helps clear a lot of those people off the queue.”Whil
Follow Jason Hancock on Twitter
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter