[StBernard] State Penalizes ICF International more than $1 million for Failure to Meet Performance Measures

[Westley Annis]

State Penalizes ICF International more than $1 million for Failure to Meet Performance Measures


BATON ROUGE, La. (July 15, 2008) - The state of Louisiana has fined ICF International, the contractor that runs the Road Home program, more than $1 million for failing to meet agreed-upon contractual performance measures relating to homeowner closings and the resolutions of files.

"Each day we strive to restore the public trust in the Road Home program, which is why we are holding ICF accountable for not meeting all of the program's benchmarks," said Paul Rainwater, Executive Director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "We do recognize that many of the homeowners who have yet to close represent the most complicated Road Home cases to close and we are committed to working through the remaining caseload to identify systemic issues and help applicants move to closing."

The penalties stem from two different sets of performance measures:

*	$692,500 for failure to close 116,000 Road Home cases by June 30, 2008. The state penalized ICF $500 for each closing it did not hold;
*	$356,879 for failure to meet performance metrics relating to resolutions in July 2007. After much analysis, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the Office of Community Development and the Louisiana Legislative Auditor were unable to verify ICF's claims that it met the metric.

The state and ICF signed contractual quarterly benchmarks for the months of April to June 2008, which included performance measures for the Road Home homeowner and small rental programs. Because the state reworked the Road Home appeals process to remove ICF from the appellate review, no metric for appeals existed. The state is still reviewing data to determine if ICF met other performance measures and if additional penalties are necessary.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated South Louisiana, claiming 1,464 lives, destroying more than 200,000 homes and 18,000 businesses. The Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) is the planning and coordinating body that was created in the aftermath of these storms to lead one of the most extensive rebuilding efforts in the world. The LRA is a 17-member body which is coordinating across jurisdictions, supporting community recovery and resurgence, ensuring integrity and effectiveness, and planning for the recovery and rebuilding of Louisiana.

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