Perspective on the Fort Smith Housing Authority audit

While most media outlets were busy exaggerating the meaning of a negative federal audit of the Fort Smith Housing Authority, officials at said authority were busy crafting responses to the problems identified.

The headlines from the federal audit (see the report from The City Wire for background information) were that the authority didn’t competitively bid for the multi-million dollar North Pointe development and that it misspent about $500,000.

On several of the faults identified by HUD (Housing and Urban Development) investigators, the authority fully agreed with the findings and have made clear their steps toward resolution.

On other points, however, the authority offers details that provide more perspective than what was reported in the federal audit and/or the media.

For example, the authority lists 11 steps in its efforts to seek competitive bidding for the aforementioned North Pointe development. The authority ended the list with the following statement:

“The project, including a contingency set aside, was completed at a total construction cost of $4,345,916.02, less than 2 percent over budget. The project met its intent and goal of providing 50 units of affordable housing through the use of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME and CDBG. North Pointe completed construction on December 31, 2007 obtaining full occupancy by March 1, 2008. North Pointe continues to meet the requirement of affordability and remains 100% occupied through the first 10 months of stabilized operation. The Partnership and the Authority believe the actions of the Partnership and steps taken to maintain open competition and cost controls is adequate to support the use of the $400,000 in HOME funds awarded through the Arkansas Development Finance Authority.”

The audit and response from the authority can be found here. (Warning: You will have to carefully scan through the HUD audit to find the response from the authority.)