I don't know if this categorizes as a political post or not. So if I offend you easily please stop reading now. If on the other hand you just want to hear a random thought for the day, well then, my friend, read on...
I am writing a grant application. This is for infrastructure improvements that are needed in our community. The federal government has decided that they will give us some money to improve things like sewers, water systems, drainage, etc. That's great. Because of the rural nature of ours and several other nearby counties affected by Hurricane Ike, the government has decided that some areas can get direct allocations of funds through their local COG (council of governments) - which is basically a place for exactly this kind of thing to happen. So - the fed notices a need (hurricane recovery) notifies the state that they're going to give us a billion dollars (it's actually more like 1.3 billion or something, but who's counting?) which notifies the COG that they're going to have to facilitate the applications to the state for the communities they serve. With me so far? I know it's convoluted. It's government. What did you expect?!?
OK. So our County (Chambers) is one of those counties who got a direct allocation of funds. This is nice because 1) it means we get to deal with the county instead of having to go up against big cities like Houston or Galveston, or even small places that got a lot of media attention like Rollover Pass or Gilchrist - not that they don't deserve money, but when you have to go up against them for funds they usually get the lion share and we're left with, well, not enough to do anything with; and 2) it also means that we get to deal with the County, which is a known quantity - both ways - and they know our needs/concerns. So far so good.
So we prepared an estimate that the County used in applying to the COG and then the COG used in applying to the state. We got the approval for all of that, and our County got something like 70 million dollars. That's a nice shot in the arm in a place that only has 30 thousand residents. 1/2 of that goes to housing concerns (and there are a LOT of them - no hard feelings about that: those folks could really, really use the help) and the other 1/2 comes for infrastructure deals. Which is where we come in...
Having identified several projects of various level of concern, we narrowed down the scope to four or five projects we thought we could go with. It's not very sexy stuff (emergency generators on lift stations...) but it's very important, particularly in the event of an, well, an event. Our total piece of the pie amounted to just over 4 million dollars. We were approved through the County and COG for that amount. It's just sitting there, like the George's donut on that Seinfeld episode where he ate out of the trash. Remember that one? That was awesome.
So my consternation today comes from having to apply to the state to get that donut. Yes, the funds are there. Yes, the projects are worthy (eligible is the exact term). Yes, we STILL have to make application for the funds. It all has to be on the official forms and must demonstrate that the funds are going for real projects (instead of some one's pocket - which is ironic because it all ends up in some one's pocket anyway).
My complaint is that it's all so process-heavy. Everything is overseen at LEAST four times - City, County, COG, State - if there's no congressional hearing into the funding... Why do I feel like I am just a high-priced and well-educated prostitute?
The good thing is that I am almost done. At least for this round. I just heard that they have allocated an additional billion for clean up. Which means we may get even our most out there (but still necessary!) projects funded...
Tell you what - when the next hurricane comes, my City is the place to be!
Comments
I thought in your masters program somewhere they would have had a required class called the redundancy of government programs. The bureaucrats (and by definition the term includes you and me)are all aware of the sacred principle of CHECKS AND BALANCES as enthroned by the founding fathers. They want to demonstrate that they are keeping the faith, so they all check to the point that things are out of balance.
Seriously, most of it is done with good intentions, in accordance with written law, and often is founded on some negative experience (fraud) now forever banished by layers of reporting. The interesting thing I have observed as both a grant maker and grant seeker is that the checks and balances make perfect sense when it is your level of government that is imposing them, and invariably makes no sense even one level above yours.
A story I may have told you illustrates all this rather well. When I was running both the weatherization and home repair programs for the Uintah Basin AOG, a bright man with the Richfield AOG noticed that there were some things that both programs would pay for, like furnaces and water heaters. He and a contractor determined that they could install 1 furnace, and bill each program for it, thus getting paid twice. No one from one program checked to see if the other was also paying.
Well, after several thousands of dollars of this, they were finally caught. He would up losing his job and ultimately his family when his wife divorced him.
But for our purposes today, the interesting thing that happened was that the two programs decided that to prevent this in the future would be for all the rest of us honest people to fill out a new form in duplicate, and send each program a copy to be checked for duplication prior to approval.
What was most frustrating about this was al the extra work and delay in getting approval to complete the job. All of us more or less honest people would have been perfectly happy if they had just punished the two guys, and left the rest of us alone. But no, we got more work, and more frustration over what had to be done to do what the programs were designed for: helping needy people.
But to the state bureaucrats it was entirely justified, reasonable, and only a little more work.
Get used to it.
Dad
Ah, well. I suppose that's good advice. I am just a little bugged today because the engineer who's doing the cost estimates handed me things in hard copy and I can't get his numbers to collate... ARGH!!!
Ah, that was cathartic. Now back to work... :-)