San Diego officials say the city’s been ordered to use more federal grant money for administrative costs. It will start diverting some of the funds away from non-profits and into project monitoring to comply. KPBS reporter Katie Orr has details.
San Diego receives millions of dollars each year in Community Block Development Grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city will begin using about 20 percent of those funds to ensure that the rest is handled correctly. Mayor Jerry Sanders says San Diego is just following orders.
Sanders: HUD has actually said that they’re demanding that we do that. This isn’t something we have come up with. We have not, as a city, going back 20 years, monitored the contracts very well. And in fact the city was in violation of some of that.
HUD found in a recent audit that the city had mismanaged 13 million dollars in development grants between 2000 and 2007. The two sides are negotiating how much San Diego will have to repay.
Katie Orr, KPBS News
