The Ferguson Group Blog

House HUD Funding Bill Deals a Blow to Key Programs, Outlook Better in the Senate

Earlier this week, the House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee approved its FY 2014 appropriations bill. The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the bill on June 27. The bill includes $28.5 billion for HUD, $5 billion, or 15 percent, less than the FY 2013 enacted level and $3 billion, or 9 percent, less than the FY 2013 post-sequestration funding level.

Community Development Block Grant formula funding would be decreased by almost 45 percent to $1.6 billion.  Overall, funding for Community Development Programs would be cut by $1.9 billion from FY 2013 to $4.8 billion, which is $1.6 billion below the spending level under sequestration. It would eliminate funds for new "sustainable" or "green" community development programs. The bill would fully fund veterans housing vouchers at $75 million, but would cut Section 8 and public housing overall by $953 million to $24.9 billion. Families expected to hold vouchers at the beginning of FY 2014 would continue to receive assistance. Housing for the disabled and for the elderly would be funded at levels requested by the Administration at $126 million and $374.6 million respectively.

The Passing of a Senator

Today has been a somber day of steady rain as New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. News reports this past week cited how his passing was notable because he was the last sitting senator of the "greatest generation," that chamber's last veteran of World War II. His death came just months after Hawaii's Senator Daniel Inouye, a wounded veteran of that war, took his resting place among the nation's noted military and civilian leaders at Arlington.

It need be said that Senator Lautenberg's death on June 3, also is notable because it marked the passing of a champion of Federal policy to making communities healthier, the environment cleaner, and industry and travel safer and better. It was a personal agenda well suited to his home State of New Jersey but carried out with no less than the nation in mind. 

In his 28 years as a senator he served on virtually every committee and subcommittee that touched on authorizing and funding transportation, civil works and environmental policy. For a period he chaired the Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations while as a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee. In recent years he also chaired the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine, Infrastructure, Safety and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee.  His approach to legislating was to cover all the bases, or at least as many as he could. He championed improving airports and the aviation system, expanding the use of transit and passenger rail, modernizing freight transportation, bringing American port infrastructure to world standards, and securing them all from the those who would do us harm.  

He was appointed to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism after the tragic downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and returned to the Senate, after a two-year hiatus, to help write and oversee anti-terrorism law after the downing of the World Trade Center towers. In those towers he had served on the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey before being elected senator in 1982. That--and his building the Automatic Data Processing Corporation (ADP) from scratch--were parts of his resume about which he often enjoyed telling people if the occasion would allow.

Senator Frank Lautenberg put much effort into environmental issues. He devoted considerable time to the recovery of the old industrial wasteland through brownfields initiatives and Superfund legislation and to making the Toxic Substances Control Act more effective. He was protecting the coastline whether the recreation beaches or the nurturing marshlands. In his last year he walked the Jersey Shore in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, secured bi-partisan support for his toxic substances legislation and, from his wheel chair, cast his final vote in support of tighter gun legislation.

From start-to-finish Senator Frank Lautenberg was an advocate for his New Jersey and for improving the vitality of the United States by improving the quality of its people's lives and its means of commerce.

 

At Long Last, DHS Releases Allocations for its Major Grant Programs

Several months after the sequester took effect and the President signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 continuing resolution, the Department of Homeland Security finally released allocations for its major grant programs for state and local governments.  Awards under the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSP), Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), and Operation Stonegarden (OPSG) total approximately $1 billion.  The awards are based on risk and threat profiles and designed to enhance capacity to prohibit, respond to, and recover from manmade and natural disasters. 

States and territories are eligible to apply through their State Administrative Agency (SAA).  The deadline to apply for drawdown of these formula funds is June 24, 2013 and grantees will have 24 months to spend the funds beginning on October 1, 2013. In general, these funds can be used for planning, equipment, training, exercises, maintenance and sustainment, critical emergency supplies, and construction/renovation. There are no matching requirements. States and territories are required to pass through 80% of their allocated funds to local agencies, making every local government in the Country eligible for SHSP funds.  For UASI funds, DHS has the discretion to set the number of UASI eligible communities and have capped the awardees to the top 25 most threatened urban areas. 

If your local government has a need to enhance and further expand their emergency response capabilities, you should get in touch with your SAA and speak to them about tapping into a portion of their allocation. Contact information for each state’s SAA can be found here. The list of SHSP, UASI, and OPSG allocations can be viewed by reviewing the FY 2013 Homeland Security Grant Program Funding Opportunity Announcement.

Growing Support for Innovative Solution to Fund Our Infrastructure Needs

Representative John Delaney,  a freshman Member of Congress from Maryland, thinks he has the next big idea for financing infrastructure in our country and two dozen of his colleagues seem to agree.  Thirteen Democrats and thirteen Republicans have signed on as cosponsors of  the legislation, The Partnership to Build America Act, which would create an infrastructure bank funded by repatriated overseas tax income. Essentially, the legislation establishes  an entity that would sell 50-year bonds at a 1 percent interest rate. U.S. corporations would be allowed to repatriate an amount of money — to be determined by auction — tax-free from overseas for every $1 they invest in the bonds. The fund would be capitalized with $50 billion in seed money, which Delaney said can leverage up to $750 billion to finance transportation, energy, communications, water and education infrastructure projects.

While there is no shortage of disagreement over how to finance our nation’s infrastructure needs, there does seem to be consensus that the need is growing and it is good to see another innovative solution added to the discussion.

Ready, Set, Go…..FY 2014 Appropriations Race is Now Underway

The House of Representatives is the first chamber out of the gate as they begin consideration this week of two out of the twelve annual appropriations bills that will fund the federal government for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014.

The House Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee will mark up its FY 2014 bill today (May 15th) and the Homeland Security Subcommittee will markup its bill on Thursday (May 16th). The House Appropriations Committee has already released drafts of both bills. Highlights include the following:

FY 2014 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill 

• The bill provides a total of $38.9 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Homeland Security, a decrease of $617.6 million below the FY 2013 enacted level and a decrease of $34.9 million compared to the President’s request.
• $10.6 billion for Customs and Border Protection, an increase of $35 million above the President’s request.
• $6.2 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, the same amount as Obama requested, $6.2 billion.
• $2.5 billion for first responder grants, $36.4 million above the fiscal year 2013 enacted level and $402 million above the President’s request. This includes $1.5 billion for State and Local grants, $675 million for Assistance to Firefighter Grants, and $350 million for Emergency Management Performance Grants.

FY 2014 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill 

• The bill provides a total of $73.3 billion in discretionary funding, which is $1.4 billion above the enacted level for FY 2013, but nearly $1.4 billion below the President’s request.

The Senate Appropriations Committee will continue to conduct hearings this week, with the goal of drafting individual bills after the week long Memorial Day recess, which is scheduled to begin on May 27th.

Although the appropriations process is underway in both Chambers, we expect the process will highlight the wide gap of $91 billion between the budgets passed individually by the House and Senate for FY 2014. The House plans to adhere to their $967 billion spending cap, which reflects the sequester cuts, while the Senate will use $1.058 trillion as a cap and ignore the sequestration cuts.

At this present time, there is no indication the House and Senate will come together on a compromise budget, so each body will produce different spending bills based on these spending limits, so brace yourself for another potentially drawn out appropriations process this year.

Federal Sustainable Communities Agency Briefing: What we Learned

Last week HUD, DOT, and EPA representatives held a conference call to discuss their plans for the FY 2014 Sustainable Communities Initiatives.

The HUD Office of Sustainable Communities announced that it has allocated $75M to create a new Integrated Planning and Investment Grants program.   The HUD representative, Shirley Poticha, suggested, but would not commit, that this new program would likely replace the Sustainable Community and Community Challenge grant programs.  Specifics on this new grant program will be announced soon.  HUD also announced that past winners of Sustainable Communities grant will be eligible for grants to implement housing and economic initiatives. 

John Frese from EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities gave an update on the utility of the Preferred Sustainability Status going forward.   In January, 2013 HUD/EPA/DOT sent memos to agencies directing that future RFPs include the six principles for Sustainable Communities. 

Frese also stated that the proposed Office budget for 2014 is $10.4M, which is an increase from FY12 budget of about $1.7M.  This Office plans to scale up technical assistance for sustainable growth.  They will also expand existing technical assistance programs like the Governor’s Institute on Community Design and the Greening America’s Capitals program. 

Frese announced that that the proposed Brownfields budget for 2014 is $85M and funding for Brownfield State & Tribal Program is pegged at $47M in FY 2014.  Frese also mentioned that EPA’s Office of Water will be issuing an Urban Waters Improvement Program.  These will be grants in the range of $40-$60K.   The grants will be made available to 7 communities.    Frese stated that The Office of Environmental Justice will not, however, be issuing a NOFA for the Small Grants program in FY2014.

Beth Osborne of USDOT gave a high level overview of the FY 2014 proposed budget.  Osborne touched on the proposed $10B American Fast Forward Bonds program – to create a national infrastructure bank.  She mentioned that AFF could include TIFIA–like assistance and could overlap some of TIFIA’s program offerings. 

FEMA Begins to Announce the Fire Prevention and Safety Grant Winners

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has begun to unveil the FY 2012 Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grant recipients.

The FP&S Grants are part of the Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) and support projects that enhance the safety of the public and firefighters from fire and related hazards.

Awards will continue to be announced on a weekly basis until all funds have been exhausted. A list of grant awardees, to date, can be found here.

DOT to Host TIGER 5 Webinars

Last week my colleague Mike Miller wrote about the release of the TIGER 5 NOFA and some of the key elements pertaining to the grant. For those of you who intend to submit your applications by the June 3rd deadline, we strongly recommend that you join one or both of the online webinars the Department of Transportation (DOT) is hosting!

On May 3rd at 2:00 p.m. EDT, DOT will conduct an hour long webinar on TIGER application preparation and guidance. To sign up for this webinar, click here.

On May 6th at 1:00 p.m. EDT, DOT will host its second webinar on benefit cost analysis guidance for TIGER 5. To sign up for this webinar, click here.

I personally participated in the TIGER 4 webinars that DOT hosted last year and found them extremely informative and helpful. I also heard similar feedback from others.

Keep in mind space is limited, so sign up today!

COPS Hiring Program Is Now Open – It’s Time to Get Your Applications In!

The Department of Justice announced this week that the application period for the 2013 COPS Hiring Program (CHP) is now open. The Cops Hiring Program is a competitive grant program that provides funding directly to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies having primary law enforcement authority for the hiring or re-hiring of additional officers to impact their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.

CHP grants will provide up to 75 percent of the approved entry-level salaries and fringe benefits of full-time officers for a 36-month period; with a minimum 25 percent local match requirement and a maximum federal share of $125,000 per officer position. Grant funds may be used to hire new, full-time sworn officer positions, to re-hire officers who have been laid off, or to re-hire officers who are scheduled to be laid off on a specific future date as a result of local budget cuts. As in the past, CHP requires that each position awarded be retained with local funds for a minimum of 12 months at the conclusion of 36 months of federal funding for each position.

A few differences to note in the 2013 CHP grant round are:

• New hire officer positions are not required to be military veterans; however applicants who commit to hiring or rehiring veterans will receive additional consideration.
• Applicants that focus on homicide and/or gun violence as their community policing problem area will receive additional consideration.
• Applicants that request officer positions in order to deploy School Resource Officers (SRO) will also receive additional consideration.

Applications are due on May 22, 2013. To obtain a copy of the application guide, click here.

TIGER V

Now that the President and Congress have agreed to fund the federal government until September 30, 2013, many are wondering when the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will be issuing a Notice of Funding Availability or NOFA for the next round of TIGER grants. The Continuing Resolution (CR) that funds the government for the balance of the federal fiscal year includes funding for the very popular TIGER Grant program, or The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

Under TIGER, state and local governments compete for grant funds to invest in road, rail, transit and port projects that promise to achieve critical national objectives. Congress dedicated $1.5 billion for TIGER I, $600 million for TIGER II, $526.944 million for TIGER III, and $500 million for the most recent TIGER Grants also referred to as TIGER IV.

The final funding level for TIGER V has not yet been revealed by the DOT, however, if the program follows the same sequestration cutting agreed to in the CR, it should receive about $474 million to dole out in grants. This figure represents a 5% cut in funding from the FY 2013 funding level established in October, 2012 when the first CR was approved for a six month period at a $503 million.

Rumor has it that the DOT will issue a NOFA later this month. Assuming this timeframe for the release of the TIGER NOFA, local governments should begin to evaluate projects to submit for this grant opportunity. Once the NOFA is released, there is normally only a month or two in which to submit a grant proposal.