[FoCHAT] CHAT Newsletter: 4/30/08- I have never experienced a more incompetent unorganized ill/uninformed group in my life.

Wed Apr 30 22:28:28 PDT 2008

Dear Concerned Citizen,

  Just one of the many cries for help CHAT has received in the last week:
  " I was never given a reason for placing the file in the inactive status. I have never experienced a more incompetent unorganized ill/uninformed group in my life. "

  So, the Legislative Auditor has and is investigating ICF but they investigate how well protocols are followed, not the quality of determination of pre-storm values and estimated cost of damage. They criticize RH for using applicant supplied documentation of insurance benefits and not data supplied by insurance companies, who we know often do not want to take the time to break down structural damage compensation from other compensation (which should not figure into grants).

  Here is information that cries out for real solutions to those applicants who keep telling us of RH staff ignoring applicant-friendly policies and any semblance of proper data management. More and  more applicants tell us of lost faxes and certified letters,  and these losses even occur multiple times for the same document from a given applicant. We get repeated descriptions for different applicants of nonperformance by some of the PALs, unanswered phone calls, refusal  of RH staff to provide written documentation of appeals/dispute decisions and award/ineligibility notices, or a copy of an applicant's file.

  And this Program wants to get grant money back from applicants for mistakes or changing calculations policies that are beyond the applicants' control and knowledge!

  Take care and please stay tuned,

  Melanie Ehrlich
  Co-Chairman, Citizens' Road Home Action Team (CHAT)

  http://www.nola. com/news/ index.ssf/ 2008/04/state_ auditor_finds. html
  La. auditor finds Road Home problems
  by David Hammer, The Times-Picayune 
  Monday April 28, 2008, 2:16 PM
  More than one in 10 Road Home grants reviewed by Louisiana's legislative auditor went to people who couldn't prove they either owned their home or lived in it at the time of the 2005 hurricanes, according to a report released today.

  The report from Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot finds ownership and/or occupancy issues with 36 of the 269 Road Home homeowner grants his staff reviewed. Ownership and occupancy are the most basic requirements to establish an applicant is eligible for a Road Home grant.
  It also said that 74 grants, more than a quarter of the sample, may have to be adjusted up or down because of conflicting documentation in the files. The report said 38 may have been overpaid by a total of $508,911 and 36 may have been underpaid by a total of $187,378.
  The auditors checked the program's documentation against Louisiana Tax Commission homestead exemption records for a sample of 269 of the 41,000 grants the program paid between May and September 2007.

  http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/2008/04/LLAaudit.pdf for the full audit 

  http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl042808tproadhomewoes.ac53129d.html

  One fourth of Road Home recipients paid too little or too much  John Moreno Gonzales / Associated Press 
  In the latest indication of questionable grant payments in the $10.3 billion Road Home program for Gulf Coast hurricane victims, a state audit found Monday that 27 percent of aid recipients had either been underpaid or overpaid according to a statistical sample. 
  The Louisiana Legislative Auditor took a closer look at 269 of the complex grant applications and discovered 38 of them had been overpaid by amounts as high as $110,727 and 36 were underpaid by up to $45,000. ICF International, the Fairfax, Va. company that stands to earn $912 million for itself and some 38 subcontractors administering the program, was criticized in March when it issued a bid invitation for yet another subcontractor to collect up to 5,000 suspected grant overpayments from disaster victims. 
  Monday's audit did not determine if the problem payments were due to misinformation provided by applicants, or possible mistakes by ICF. State officials promised to get to the bottom of the discrepancies. 
  "The state is deeply concerned about the percentage of homeowners in the Legislative Auditor's sample that did not appear to be paid the correct amount," said Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state agency overseeing Road Home. "Our top priorities are ensuring fairness to homeowners and proper use of federal rebuilding dollars. It is important that homeowners receive the full grant amount which could have been awarded under the program, no more, no less." 
  Stephens said the state is hiring an independent auditor to review files and working on its policy for how it will collect funds from homeowners who were overpaid, something it must do to adhere to federal law. A key part of the policy will be a review board to look at all overpayments or underpayments, she said. 
  ICF International spokeswoman Gentry Brann saw the auditor's report differently, saying in an e-mail that the "files generally are not errors; rather they are values that changed in the computer system after the files were frozen for closing, due to new information on insurance receipts, SBA loans, FEMA payments." 
  She said the program "anticipated such occurrences and adopted a post-closing process early on to reconcile applicant files, as necessary, after closing." 
  Still, community groups bristled at the possibility of Katrina and Rita victims paying back thousands of dollars in aid just as they got back on their feet from the 2005 hurricanes. They continued their criticism of the program Monday, charging that while the auditor was looking closely at problem payments, it may be ignoring a more fundamental issue. 
  The system that determines what an applicant receives depends on a system in which straightforward methods at determining a grant are de-emphasized, they said, such as using a state certified appraisal of a home. Instead, they said, the program uses a complex series of appraisals that examine market analysis and other duplicate measures. 
  "We hear over and over again of them calling houses that had eight feet of water in them less than 51 percent damaged," said Melanie Ehrlich, co-chair of the Citizen's Road Home Action Team, or CHAT. 
  "It's make-work" for ICF and its subcontractors, added co-chair Frank Silvestri. 
  The audit was a follow up to a report last fall that sampled 80 Road Home awards and found 37 percent had either awarded too much, or too little money to the applicant. The findings were challenged by ICF, which said new program changes were not taken into account that would lower the percentage of problem cases. 
  But John Morehead, the main author of the report, indicated Monday that the Road Home program still had much work to do to become efficient. Even with new policies being part of the audit, more than one in four cases were still problematic, he said. 
  (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) 

  Take a deep breadth before reading the next article and remember that often these kinds of actions eventually are held to account. 

  http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl043008tpexecbonuses.b6638ad2.html

  Executive of company running Road Home program gets $1.5 million bonus  05:01 PM CDT on Wednesday, April 30, 2008  Alan Sayre and John Moreno Gonzales / Associated Press 
  The top executive of ICF International Inc., the company running Louisiana's Road Home hurricane rebuilding program, collected a $1.5 million performance bonus in 2007, drawing criticism from public officials who say the company is stumbling in its effort to help disaster victims. 
  Sudhakar Kesavan, chief executive of the Fairfax, Va., consulting company, received just under $3.2 million in total compensation last year, an increase from about $2.7 million in 2006, according to ICF's annual proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 
  Most of the increase was due to a 50 percent increase in a performance bonus, according to Tuesday's filing. Kesevan's 2007 bonus was $500,000 higher than the year before. 
  "If he'd applied for the raise through the Road Home program he manages, he'd still be waiting," said Adam Sharp, spokesman for U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La. 
  Landrieu added in an e-mail: "Perhaps if ICF was more focused on the people they serve rather than expanding the benefits to its top brass, the legacy of the company would not be so dismal." 
  In an email, ICF senior vice president Douglas Beck said, "Many factors contributed to the board's determination, and they are clearly stated in SEC filings to include overall financial performance outside of The Road Home, particularly in ICF's core businesses in energy, environment, social programs, defense and homeland security." 
  In 2007, ICF's five top executives collectively received bonuses more than $1 million higher than the previous year, according to the filing. They have collected $5.6 million in performance bonuses since the company's initial public stock offering in 2006, the year ICF won the Road Home contract. 
  ICF said in its proxy statement that bonuses for Kesavan and four other top officers "reflect both the strong performance of the company and the named executive officers individually." 
  In 2007, ICF stock more than doubled its IPO price, closing at $25.26 on Dec. 31. The company went public at $12 a share in September 2006. Recently it has been trading near the bottom of it's 52-week range and closed Wednesday at $17.84. 
  State officials who have direct supervision over ICF's administration of the $10.3 billion Road Home program echoed Landrieu's comments. The state is investigating a $156 million increase in ICF's Road Home contract granted in the last days of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration. The company also faces criticism for a plan to collect suspected overpayments from as many as 5,000 hurricane victims, though state audits have found consistent discrepancies in the calculation of assistance grants. 
  "The state has made it very clear that we are not pleased with ICF's performance in running the Road Home program and has been pushing for greater customer service and compassion to homeowners," Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said Wednesday in a written statement. "I wouldn't have recommended a $1.5 million bonus for ICF's CEO when the company's largest client is displeased with its performance." 
  In 2007, Kesavan received just over $395,000 in salary, a $1.5 million bonus and $1.27 million from stock options and restricted stock. In 2006, his salary was just over $367,000, his bonus was $1 million and stock options and restricted stock were worth $600,000. He also received $700,000 in 2006 from an incentive plan, according the SEC filing. 
  John Wasson, ICF's chief operating officer, got a boost in his bonus from $600,000 to $1 million. Chief financial officer Alan Stewart earned a $600,000 bonus in 2007, up from $400,000 in 2006. Ellen Glover, an executive vice president, saw a slight decrease to $150,000 from $165,000 in 2006. Another executive vice president, Gerald Croan, received a $100,000 bonus in 2007 and an $80,000 bonus in 2006. 
  For 2007, ICF said it earned $40.6 million, or $2.72 per share, on revenue of $727.1 million, compared with 2006 earnings of $11.9 million, or $1.10 per share, on revenue of $331.3 million. 
  Road Home revenue increased to $459.4 million in 2007 from $116 million in 2006, according to an earlier SEC filing. 
  The Associated Press calculates total compensation by including salary, bonuses, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and options awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they may differ from what companies report to the SEC and shareholders on their compensation summaries in their proxy statements, which use other measures. 
  Road Home, financed with federal funds, gives victims of 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita up to $150,000 to rebuild their damaged home or relocate, but it has been blamed for the pained recovery of neighborhoods. ICF stands to be paid $912 million for its work on Road Home, which will be shared with subcontractors including Louisiana construction powerhouse The Shaw Group Inc., and prominent law firm Jones Walker. 
  (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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