[StBernard] Officials consider changing company that maintains Road Home properties to cut costs

[Westley Annis]

Officials consider changing company that maintains Road Home properties to
cut costs
by By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune 
Tuesday August 05, 2008, 10:26 PM
   
Standing in the neutral ground on Florida Boulevard, Lakeview activist
Connie Uddo pointed toward a cute white house with a perfectly manicured
lawn, accented by a small tree covered in bright pink flowers. A smile came
to her face. 
"See that one? Bet you didn't know that was a Road Home property," the St.
Paul's Beacon of Hope director said recently. "I think those guys are doing
an incredible job." 

After a rocky -- not to mention blighted and weed-infested -- start, there
is little doubt the upkeep of thousands of state-held properties has been a
bright spot in the oft-troubled Road Home recovery program. 

But it is also expensive. Despite the maintenance contractor's high
performance ratings, the state is considering finding a new company that
would charge less for lawn maintenance, cleanup and boarding. 




Louisiana is using federal dollars to pay Task Force LLC, of Baton Rouge,
$18.5 million this year under a sweeping maintenance contract and could pay
about $26 million next year if fee rates remain steady. 

The company collects $1,875 annually per property to handle routine
grass-cutting on a typical 6,000-square-foot city lot. Task Force gets more
for larger yards and for cutting grass more than a foot high. The company
also charges for initial assessments of each property, monthly inspections,
clearing debris and boarding up unsecured windows and doors. 

Taxpayers finance work 

With all those costs factored in, taxpayers are paying about $2,924 a year
to maintain the average Road Home property, plus another $650 a year for
security, which is provided by private patrols under a separate contract. 

With both contracts entering their second year, upkeep could cost about $32
million in the fiscal year from September 2008 to August 2009. 

Some properties are more expensive than others. For example, 1 E. Chalmette
Circle in Chalmette required $1,194 worth of work on July 9 alone, as Task
Force crews cleared 25 cubic yards of garbage, tree limbs and other debris
and cut back choking grass and weeds that nearly covered the abandoned
house. 

As of July 26, Task Force had 8,493 properties to maintain in 27 southern
Louisiana parishes, and state officials expect that number to top out at
about 9,000 by the end of the year. 

It is becoming clear that the Louisiana Land Trust will be stuck with
thousands of properties for years, making tighter control over the
maintenance contract and the separate security contract a priority for
Jindal's administration. 

The state's plan was to gradually transfer the lots from the Louisiana Land
Trust, intended as the state's temporary repository for Road Home
properties, back to parishes for redevelopment. But under contract changes
being considered, that may do little to change the state's maintenance
burden. 

About 4,000 parcels should end up going to the New Orleans Redevelopment
Authority and another 4,000 to St. Bernard Parish's development agency, with
the balance of the other 1,000 or so spread mostly among Jefferson,
Plaquemines, St. Tammany, Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. But the state is
still reviewing some parish disposition plans, including St. Bernard's, and
its approval is required before property ownership can be transferred. NORA,
meanwhile, is still waiting for approvals from the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development to get started. 

Even if transfer of the first 500 properties in New Orleans is imminent, as
NORA Executive Director Joe Williams says, the state expects the parishes to
be cautious about how quickly they add badly damaged properties to an
already-overburdened private market. 

Keeping responsibility 

And the strategy for how fast parcels are transferred may prove a moot point
when it comes to the Task Force contract: Land Trust Director Mike Taylor
said he is talking with state and parish officials about keeping the
responsibility for maintenance and security of the properties even after
they are transferred to local governments. 

That is why the Land Trust, in an effort to reduce costs, has started
picking apart Task Force's contract fees and is considering soliciting new
bids to cut costs. It is a tough decision for Taylor, the former head of the
state's Disaster Recovery Unit who took over control of the Land Trust last
month. 

He knows Task Force's maintenance crews have routinely posted a 95 percent
success rate or better in keeping thousands of yards cut every 10 days. He
knows the contractor and the Land Trust have devised a state-of-the-art
tracking system to ensure the crews are doing the work for which they bill.
He knows Task Force has built a strong relationship with neighborhood groups
to address problems, and often does a better job of keeping lots clean and
attractive than neighbors do. 

But the quasi-public Land Trust is under pressure from the state's recovery
officials to tighten its administrative controls. After Jindal took office,
his administration cracked down on Land Trust spending, citing it for poor
accounting, overbudgeting and loose contracting processes. 

Officials also found glitches in compliance with language in the Task Force
contract. A March 25 letter from the state Office of Community Development
stated the Land Trust paid Task Force more than $500,000 so the company
could bring its capital equipment up to snuff, an expense outside the bounds
of the contract. 

The state monitors also said the Land Trust allowed the company to help with
the auditing of yard work invoices it had turned in for payment. 

Task Force had to pay back the equipment charges. And Land Trust's original
executive director, former New Orleans public housing official Nadine
Jarmon, resigned April 11. 

The state Office of Community Development accused Jarmon of awarding
contracts to previous business partners and overstating the Land Trust's
budgetary needs. The Office of Community Development also questioned her
housing management work during the tenure of Alphonso Jackson, who resigned
as secretary of Housing and Urban Development after charges that he steered
contracts to friends. Jarmon denied allegations against her and said the
Office of Community Development was seeking retribution because she had
publicly accused the agency of mishandling property transfers and neglecting
the Land Trust's budgetary needs. 

Meanwhile, Task Force has grappled with internal issues. The company fired
one of its 21 subcontractors after learning it had used photographs from a
single grass-cutting to support a claim that it had completed several cuts.
Since then, the Land Trust has added a new safeguard, a "cut code," linking
each photo image to a specific day, in an effort to guard against fraud. 

Adam Rodriguez, a ranking Task Force executive who spearheaded the company's
bid for the Road Home maintenance contract, resigned suddenly in June,
alleging improper payments to a Turkish immigrant who was still seeking a
U.S. work visa. The company and the immigrant, who sold high-tech equipment
to Task Force, denied there were any improper payments. 

Even as he criticized his former employer, Rodriguez acknowledged that he
wants the Land Trust to rebid the Road Home maintenance contract so he can
get the lucrative deal for himself. 

The internal fireworks do not appear to have had any impact on the use of
taxpayer dollars, state officials say. Taylor says every contractor faces
internal personnel issues, and he said he is not worried about Task Force's
because they have not affected its performance. 

Community involvement 

The company has also stepped up in the community, participating in a
Recovery School District program that teaches New Orleans high schoolers
about entrepreneurship and work responsibilities. 

Twenty high school students cut yards on 115 Road Home properties in 38 days
for Task Force, and in exchange, the company taught them how to put together
a business plan. The company plans to follow up on their studies. 

"The houses we did were pretty awful till we took care of them," said Pat
Tobias, 17, a student at John McDonogh High School. "It made us feel good
after we finished." 

After Jarmon's departure, the Land Trust added more inspectors to monitor
contractors and developed tighter accounting controls. Its five-member board
of directors, taking cues from state Community Development Director Paul
Rainwater, is determined to reduce spending on the Task Force contract. 

The board voted last month to renew the contract for another year, saying
its only legal alternative was to terminate the contract at the end of
August with nobody ready to step in and do the work. But payment terms will
have to be renegotiated anyway as soon as the state hits the $18.5 million
first-year cap, which is expected to happen in the next 60 to 90 days. A
spending cap for the second year still must be defined. 

"The work they're doing is almost too good," said the newest Land Trust
board member, Donald Vallee, who has talked tough about replacing Task
Force. "We don't need to be the only ones in a neighborhood that look nice."


But Task Force owner Rowland Kimbrough said that is precisely the point: to
have well-manicured properties that will inspire future investment and more
rebuilding. He also signaled that his company will not be bullied into a
major pay cut. 

"This is the first shining star in this whole recovery process," Kimbrough
said. "If you don't like me now, if you don't like my prices, why didn't you
make that decision when you hired me?" 

David Hammer can be reached at dhammer at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3322.