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House committee chides Delta agency, limits funding Saturday, Jun 28, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - For the second straight year, a House committee has admonished the Delta Regional Authority over its spending priorities and voted to slash the agency's annual budget by half. The House Appropriations Committee said in a report released this week the agency has not distributed federal grant money to the most impoverished counties in the Mississippi Delta region and has failed to properly monitor use of the money it does disburse. The committee recommended Congress provide the agency $6 million in fiscal 2009, half the approximately $12 million that DRA received this year. Similarly, the committee a year ago blasted the agency for its high administrative costs and recommended the same funding level. The harsh language in the report that goes along with this year's Energy and Water appropriations bill was added by request of Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Thompson's deputy chief of staff on Friday said the congressman was concerned that no county in his district received grant money from the agency. Counties in Thompson's district are among the poorest in the region. "In the view of this committee, this lapse is unacceptable, given the authority's primary mission is to assist the counties where the most needs exists," the report stated. Rex Nelson, deputy director of the agency, said governors of the eight Delta region states determine grant awards. The agency's only role in grant distribution is to determine which projects are eligible for grants. The committee directed the agency to implement new grant-monitoring procedures. Nelson said audits are already "far above" required standards. "Our track record is very solid in those areas," he said. The agency was created in 2000 to foster economic development and improve the quality of life in the 240-county Delta region. It's done just that with the resources available, said Lee Powell, director of the nongovernmental Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus. More than 93 percent of DRA grant funding is dedicated to distressed counties, Powell said. "The House language has the situation exactly backward," he said. "The DRA is doing a good job with tiny funding. If the committee wants more funding to go into distressed communities in the Delta, the obvious way to do that is to increase the funding over the ludicrously low level of $6 million." Thompson's letter should not be seen as an effort to slash the agency's budget, said Karis Gutter, his deputy chief of staff. "His efforts are to improve on what we've already begun," Gutter said. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Gillett, said Congress is too cash-strapped to provide the agency anything more. Berry, a member of the appropriations panel, was the chief critic of the DRA's administrative expenses a year ago. He said he was comfortable with the steps the agency took to address the problem. "But it doesn't really matter whether I am or not, because that's what it's going to be," Berry said. "We're just so strapped for money, but that (appropriation) is actually better than what we could expect." The Senate last year voted to double the $6 million requested by President Bush and the House committee. That $12 million appropriation made it into the fiscal 2008 budget. This year's budget outlook is more murky, with Congress unlikely to pass most 2009 spending bills until a new president takes office. |
