Thanks to Sen. Doug Broxson and Rep. Alex Andrade, the Community Action Program will have assistance funds to help locals with rent and utilities, according to CAP executive director Doug Brown.
“We have been informed us that a budget resolution has been reached that has fixed the funding issue effective immediately,” Brown told Inweekly. “We were notified that funding and everything that was on hold was green to go effective Tuesday night, and we should be made whole on all obligations as quickly as their finance department does its processing.”
He added, “It’s a huge, huge, huge fix. Rep. Andrade, who’s heads up the subcommittee for DEO (Department of Economic Opportunity) and Sen. Broxson, who heads up Senate Appropriations, have been touted for their leadership. They were the key champions to getting this resolution.”
On Friday, April 7, CAP had been notified that the assistance funding had been terminated, effective April 13. He and other independent Community Action Programs around the state had to suspend their assistance programs until July.
DEO administrators four programs that are funded with federal dollars – Community Services Block Grant, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Low Income Water Assistance, and the Weatherization programs,” Brown explained. “Those four programs are funded from the Fed, and then Tallahassee, by population, directs those dollars to each county.”
CAP has been running those programs since its inception. “It’s cost reimbursement. We all do the work, invoice DEO, and the state promises to pay us within time certain.”
“We spent beyond that authority that the legislature had given them, and DEO failed to project that the bank account was getting low because there’s folks using these programs around the state,” said Brown. “So in effect, they went back to the legislature in November-December because this had happened before, and they had about a month-long freeze. We were told the problem had been fixed.”
He continued, “And then for them to come back on Good Friday and drop this bomb, it was a bomb. Agencies literally shut down operations immediately. The few run by county governments kind of fought through it, trying to hold on. Wednesday’s action took care of all of that. The legislature fixed DEO’s poor process.”
Brown said that CAP had to rush to submit all its vouchers by April 13 to be considered for reimbursement. “That led to the huge scramble to get payments in, but with no expectation of when we would get those funds back. At the same time, those pledges are still pending at these utility companies. We were on the hook to the utility company with a promise to them because we’ve got a promise from the state.”
He said the budget resolution will not help Open Doors Northwest Florida because its funding comes from a different pot of money.