SHA July 22, 2024 Board of Commissioners Meeting Minutes

MINUTES
REGULAR MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE
SANFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY
MONDAY, July 22, 2024, AT 6:00 P.M.
317 CHATHAM STREET SANFORD, NC 27330

A meeting of the Board of Commissioners for Sanford Housing Authority was held on Monday, July 22, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. at SHA Central Office, 317 Chatham Street, Sanford, NC 27330. Notice of this meeting was duly posted.

1. Roll Call:

ATTENDANCE:

Commissioner Hope White, Chairperson
Commissioner Jackie Dalrymple
Commissioner Karen Wicker
Commissioner Erin Britton
Commissioner Diane Sinnamon

ABSENT:

Commissioner William Newby, Vice Chairperson
Commissioner Holly Aeschliman

Ms. White asked the new board members and all attendees to introduce themselves. Ms. Dalrymple said that she has always been a resident of Sanford and currently works at Bristol Myers Squibb as a manager and has been in the pharmaceutical industry for 16 years, she has one son and one grandson.

Ms. Sinnamon said that she has been living in Sanford for about 40 years, she was raised in California, and she has five children, she used to work at the copy center for 13 years. She said that she likes the greenery of North Carolina.

Dr. Wicker said that she has lived in Sanford for a long time. She was born in Washington DC and moved to Sanford from Philadelphia. She said that she enjoys serving the Sanford Housing Authority and wants to help everyone get housing.

Ms. White said she was born and raised in Sanford and loves living here; she couldn't see herself anywhere else. She is a graduate of North Carolina Central University and has been on the SHA board for a long time.

Ms. Britton shared that she is from Wake County and moved here about eight years ago because her husband is from Sanford.

Mr. Ferguson introduced himself as the City Liaison.

Jeffrey Blackwell introduced himself as the CFO (Chief Finance Officer) and, noted that this is his second stint working at SHA. He said that he also graduated from NCCU.

Sherri said that she is the Director of Operations and has been with SHA for one year and a week. She moved to Sanford from Florida and started her housing career in Nevada.

Marcus Goodson stated that he is the Interim CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and that this is also his second term here at SI-IA . I-le was here from 1997 until 2002 when the office was on First Street. He was born and raised in Raleigh and attended college at East Carolina University as an undergraduate. He said he has been here since September 2022 and is typically here two weeks out of the month and back in Ft. Myers Florida for two weeks. He stated he would give each new board member his cell phone number in case they need to reach him.

Ms. White said Roberts Rules are used for the board meetings and asked if the books had been ordered. Mr. Goodson said yes, we ordered ten books. She asked when we should get them , and Mr. Goodson said they should arrive any day now. Ms. White said that some people may already know Roberts Rules but wanted to get the books ordered in case they do not.

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Ms. White asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the June 24, regular meeting. Dr. Wicker motioned. Ms. Britton seconded, all were in favor: and the motion passed unanimously.

3. Financial Report
Jeffrey said that he is working on getting the financials up to date. He said that the agency has been without a CFO for about a year and a half and during this time, we have changed software programs and are now in the process of reconciling old transactions. Therefore, there is a gap in reporting because the invoices that came in were not invoiced, leaving unpaid invoices so payments were not made on time. When he started on April 15th , there were quite a few invoices that were not in the system, so we are trying to catch up with invoicing. He said that each week there are new discoveries and before the last board meeting, he just received the audited financials from 2022. He said two weeks ago he received tax returns for MGG from 2021 so as a CFO the dilemma that it presents for him is that at the encl of a tax year. you must adjust interest and then when the auditors are auditing. they also need adjusting interest for the accounting department. He said this creates a problem because he must have good starting numbers. We have been working hard to keep pace with payments and get up to date with them. Also, we are categorizing these expenses and payments so we can document these transactions when we do have those numbers.

Jeff told the board that each year they should expect financial statements, audits, and tax returns. He said currently, we are in the 2023 audit year for public housing, and we are completing the auditing and tax preparation for that year which has been outsourced. He said when we get the three documents back, we will have good balances to build on. Jeff said that now that we are two months before the end of the 2024 fiscal year and his objective was to have financials by June but each month, he is being given new obstacles to overcome but he should have financials by the end of the fiscal year, which is September, and it should not be a problem. He said we need information from the auditors and tax preparers to give good balances.

Jeff said that we are making some modifications to the invoicing process. Also, in the bank accounts that we have, there was only one set up to do direct deposit payments. The old accounting administration was accumulating expenses on the different project areas like public housing, I-ICY, and tax credit properties and then making transfers to the main operating account, even though each project has its operating account. This creates a problem because we do not have transaction listings that you can reconcile with invoices. He said that we are having to reinvoice. He said that we are trying to deal with the bank and get clearance to add direct deposit so that each project can pay their bills out of their operating accounts instead of transferring from Matthews and Garden-Gilmore operating accounts so that the reporting will be clearer in terms of invoicing and aligning with payments.

Jeff marked some transfers because interagency transfers are frowned upon, and auditors may have questions about these transactions. Jeff said that we are working to change this practice that has been adopted, which was not necessarily in the operating procedures so that they line up. Ms. Dalrymple asked for clarity on making changes and Jeff replied that we are working to fix it by operating the way that it is supposed to be according to our Internal Control Policies. Jeff said that if it is not set up to do direct deposit from the bank end and the software end, we must update the operations to allow it to do so, then we can do fewer transfers, and accounting can be easier to report and manage. Ms. Dalrymple asked if one person is paying the bills and Jeff said that we manage the paying of all the bills, but we need to correct the pot that the bills are being paid out of instead of them being paid out of the one pot. He said, one person creates the transactions in the system, he approves them and processes the transactions through the bank if it is an ACH transaction. He said at one time one person was doing both, but when he got here, we changed that because that would be an audit finding.

He said that since the 2023 financials are being audited, we will start making journal corrections before 2024 financial data can be compiled. Jeff asked if there were any questions. Dr. Wicker asked where we are with the City of Sanford, and he said that we are on track with the City of Sanford. Jeff said that when he says that we are on track, he means that we are aware of the bill amounts and are communicating with the vendors regarding payments. He said that the only thing he has questions about are the utilities. He said that he has communicated with Sheni that we need to get out of the utility business of paying peoples' utilities especially since there is a built-in utility allowance option that we can use. He said that he is communicating with the City of Sanford, Dominion Energy, and Duke Energy so that they will change the billing to bill by project instead of as individual units. He said that the current way these vendor bill poses a problem because when they send a bill that has various projects on it, it becomes hard to break the invoice down and separate the invoices by project considering that they have their own operating accounts; we want the invoice to match the project so that it is easier to invoice and pay.

Ms. Dalrymple asked, "What does BOO stand for " Jeff said that BOO was the fee accountant who oversaw creating our financials up to December of 2023 . She asked what MGG stand for. Jeff said, MGG is Matthews, Garden, and Gilmore. Ms. White explained further that MGG is three of our properties that were converted from public housing to project-based voucher projects, where tenants get a voucher to live in units on the property. We have an investor who owns 99%, we own 1%; after 15 years, we can buy it back for $1 , but right now, we are the property manager for those properties. Technically, we do not own the properties. Ms. Dalrymple asked about SACS, Sherri explained that it is Scotts Accounting Software, which is our housing and accounting program.

Mr. Goodson said, typically when there is a new commissioner, he takes them around and shows them all the properties, but he has not been able to get that done, but he will.

There were no other questions.

4. Department Head Reports

Public Housing Report
Sherri reported the following :

There is one manager and an assistant manager for the properties.

Occupancy Rates:

Linden Heights: 85% occupied
Utley Plaza: 93% occupied
Foushee Heights: 83% occupied
Harris Court: 96% occupied
226 Linden: 100% occupied

We have some vacant units that we are working on to get occupied, we did three move-ins last month and five transfers. We must periodically transfer people out if there is something in their unit that cannot be fixed right away. She said, in these cases, it is plumbing that is underground. For example, we have 2 units that are offline that we cannot fix, and we have to do plumbing in the walls and in the floors.

Maintenance Report:

Linden Heights: Twenty-eight work orders were issued, twenty-six were completed and the other 2 may have been completed but we have to close the month out at noon on the last day of the month, and usually the remaining work orders are done the very next day. The average turnaround time to complete work orders was two and ½ days.

Emergency Work orders:

Linden Heights: Twelve were issued and twelve were completed within 24 hours.
Utley Plaza: Eighteen work orders were issued, and sixteen were completed.

Emergency Work Orders: Seven work orders.

Foushee Heights: Eleven work orders were issued, ten were completed, and one was outstanding.

Emergency Work Orders : Four work orders.

Harris Court: Nine work orders were issued, and seven were completed.

Emergency Work Orders: Three work orders.

226 Linden: Three work orders were issued, and three were completed.

Emergency Work orders: Zero work orders.

Sherri said she hopes the board can see that the work orders are being completed quicker. When she started it took about two hundred days to complete work orders. However, with the unit turns, we have more work to do with that, but as far as turnover, the staff is doing well.

Ms. Dalrymple asked about the $87 charge to tenants on the report. Sherri said tenants are charged for damages in their unit beyond normal wear and tear and are charged at move-out. Charges can be holes in the wall that are larger than a quarter. She said broken doors are a charge because the doors are solid wooden doors that should not need repair. However, if things in the units were old and needed to be replaced anyway, we would not charge tenants, which is why you do not see a lot of charges to tenants. She said that now the property managers take move-in pictures so when tenants move out and there is damage, we have proof that it was not like that when they moved in. She said that because she was not here and did not see the condition of the unit at move-in, she did not charge the tenants .

MGG
Sherri reported the following:
Vacancy Report:

Matthews Court: Has fifty units for the elderly/disabled, they were at 90% occupied.
Garden-Gilmore: Has 126 units, they were at 76% occupied. Together, there is an 83% occupancy rate.

The vacant units at Matthews Com1 which is a total of five ; however, when a unit becomes vacant at MGG, we must report it to NCHF A because we must report it for the targeted units for the homeless which is what we agreed to when we agreed to convert MGG to a tax credit property. So, we must send these units to NC Housing Finance, and we cannot rent them until they tell us that they do not have anyone for these targeted units. NCHF A works with homeless people across the state and can refer applicants. With Matthews Court, we just got back the 5 units from the state, we have 5 ready files that Section 8 has made ready ; Section 8 then sends the ready file to the property manager who then must make the file tax credit ready. Each applicant must complete two qualification processes: Section 8 and tax credit. After the tax credit file is done, the file is merged and then the file is sent to a third-party compliance company who then tells us if we did everything with the file to be able to lease the unit to the person. Finally, we must have a third-party unit inspector, who we pay to come out and determine if the unit is HQS approved; we cannot do our own inspections. Sherri said that therefore, it takes longer to be able to lease the units which is not always the management's fault.

Maintenance Report:

Matthews Court: There were twenty-two work orders issued, nineteen were completed and three were outstanding. There were three emergency work orders issued.
Garden-Gilmore: There were seventy-six work orders issued, and sixty-five were completed. There were eleven emergency work orders issued.

Mr. Ferguson said that he received a call about a fallen tree on Garden Street a couple of weeks ago that had stakes in it and was not safe. He said that the tree was near the railroad tracks. He said that the tree had been uprooted. Sherri said that we had gotten a call about it. She said that the tree is on our property during a storm and that she had contacted a company to come out and make it safe by digging the roots up. Mr. Goodson said that we have mitigated it, but we must get the stump removed. Sherri said she also got a call last Thursday or Friday about a fence by a property behind the hospital, but she did not know what they were talking about, she was googling the address, but we do not have a property on the street named. She said the person complained about a fence at the back of one of the properties. Mr. Goodson said that that property is behind the hospital. She said when she looked up the street, it was behind the hospital and Mr. Goodson said, that's Gilmore Terrace. Mr. Goodson said that we are trying to get someone to work part-time with MGG who knows file management, and who we don't have to train. He said that he had a meeting scheduled with Brenda Williams who used to work for him when he was here before. She is currently retired but has agreed to work part-time to help MGG get caught up on the files. He will reschedule the meeting. Ms. White said that she has a question, but she will ask it in the closed session.

HCV
Sherri Reported:
We are at 77% of utilization of our regular vouchers, fifty-six of our V ASH vouchers, Harnett Training School is at 95%, Matthews Com1 is at 86%, Garden-Gilmore is at 78% and 226 Linden is at 100%. She reiterated that we have no control over V ASH and Hamett Training School and HUD does not count the utilization rates against us when we complete the SEMAP at the end of the fiscal year where because we have no control over these programs; these programs send us their clients that will use the vouchers. VASH vouchers belong to the VA (Veterans Affairs) and Harnett Training School vouchers belong to them. Therefore, if the voucher rate is low for VASH and Harnett Training School it is because they have not supplied us with tenants. Total occupancy is at 78% and HUD requires that you be at 95% or higher to get your SEMAP scores based on either your utilization rate must be at 95% or the utilization of your funds. She said that we are at 105% utilization of money; therefore, we would get our SEMAP points. She said, if more people are using more of the funding, then there is a smaller voucher number to give and so based on where we are today, we would get all our points. She said that it varies with what is going on in the world; when people are not making as much money, then we pay more for the voucher. She noted that on the second page, the MGG applicant numbers on the waitlist were twenty-three for a one bedroom, she selected twelve and already referred them to the MGG staff. She said that Keren is constantly making sure that the files stay compliant, but it is up to the management staff at the property to keep it compliant because the information becomes out of compliant after 120 days. She said, if they are not housed, Section 8 must do it all over. She said that if you see zero has been referred, it is because we have no vacancies because the file will get old, and we will have to redo it anyway.

Sherri said that when a vacancy becomes available, the property management staff must notify Section 8 immediately so that they can start working on a file. Ms. White stated that Matthews Court does not have two bedrooms, and this is her first time seeing this. Sheni said that Matthews Court has 2-2 bedrooms. She asked if Section 8 has been working on the new list. Sherri said that the next batch of interviews will be from the new list. Keren pulls fifty applicants at a time, and you may get between 15 to 20 to show up. She said that that is why we only keep 1500 applicants on the waitlist so that it does not extend out over multiple years, because that is terrible to do. She said that our goal is to never have a waitlist that goes beyond a year and a half.

Sheni said that we are waiting on three quotes to come back for Section 8 from Nelrod, Cordell, and Prio, which are third-party organizations that do Section 8 audits. She said that their services are often pricey, but we will wait until we receive the quotes back. Ms. White referenced that during the last board meeting, she asked when the last time the Section 8 files were audited because there is 1 Section 8 manager and they had about 796 vouchers that she audits; therefore, she asked to have a third party audit the files. She said a long time ago, the feds came down and slapped our hands for the public housing files. She said that public housing gets audited all the time, but not Section 8 and they could be making mistakes, so she just wants to be proactive. Sherri said that our auditors do audit Section 8, each year, the auditors ask for files . Our current audit consists of only Section 8, with no public housing auditing; the auditors have received about 25-30 files to audit, so they did get a good sample this year. Sheni said that she does not know when the last time public housing was audited, usually it's every 3 years but is not sure the last time the public housing files were audited for this housing authority by the auditors.

Sherri said next Friday, August 2nd, we will participate in a back-to-school bash for the homeless which is hosted by the Salvation Army of Wake and Lee counties. We will have a table out there and she hopes that we can get a few applications out to some families at the event; the event is from 10 am until 1 pm. She said that Shkera will be attending to distribute FSS (FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY) information. Mr. Ferguson said that they usually have different companies out there that give out different school supplies, just as an idea for the housing authority but stated that housing is the most important thing. He said that a couple of years ago, people walked away with clothing and other items. Sherri said she called the program manager and told her she would like to give out housing information, and they said it would be great. Sherri said she is used to participating in it and when she learned about it, she asked for volunteers from SHA, and now we will be participating.

Sheni said that Ms. Gilchrist previously spoke about a leaning electric pole on Linden, she said that we called Duke Energy on June 10, the end of June, and July l 7th to request that someone come out to make sure that it poses no danger, but Duke just recently created a priority ticket to come out and make sure that it does not pose a danger. Mr. Goodson said that he thinks that it is cracked, and Sheni said that it looks like it was struck by lightning, so we are documenting that we are trying to get someone out here to check on it.

Resident Services
There is a summer backpack program that Shkera is participating in that gives children canned goods, drinks, fruit cups, and candy. He said that these summer programs are valuable to the children because during the summer when children are not in school, they may miss some of the food programs and Shkera is excited to be a part of it. Ms. Dalrymple asked if it was the backpack program through the CUOC. Mr. Goodson said that he was not sure and should have asked her that.

Shkera is establishing Resident Councils at each development. She has a meeting set up for Garden St. On August 15th we are confirming dates for the other developments. Mr. Goodson said that typically, we want to have them at all developments, but unfortunately, sometimes people do not get involved, she is working to improve interest in the residents.

There is a back-to-school event through the Salvation Army, and we are committed to the August 2nd event.

We are still working with the food pantry, but it is on pause until we can secure transportation. We must pick up the food from the Raleigh or Sandhills Food Bank locations. We passed the food safety and site inspection, so we are ready to go, but just trying to get transportation secured. The next step is to shop, where we go to the sites and shop for the food that we want to bring back to the food pantry to make it available to our residents and the homeless.

National Night Out is coming on October 1st, Mr. Goodson said that he is accustomed to it being around August, but it has been pushed back. Mr. Ferguson said that the city switched it up because of the heat. Mr. Goodson said that he is hopeful that we will have Resident Councils started so that we can have them at multiple locations to get more communities and residents involved.

There is a Resident Council calendar that should be out this week, and Mr. Goodson will email it to the board so you can see when things are happening. Shkera has promised Mr. Goodson that it will be out this week so that he can get it to the board.

Mr. Goodson asked if there were any questions, there were no questions.

5. New Business

TAG Contract -Stewart Manor
Mr. Goodson said that because there are some reservations about the TAG contract, he would like to review it before the agreement is executed. He said that he should not have been pushing so hard to get this done and he would therefore like to bring it back to the board for review.

Ms. Dalrymple said that she felt like some items were missing as she was trying to review the information based on what she was used to seeing in contracts. Ms. White asked Mr. Goodson if he would like to call this to a vote or if he just wanted to have the discussion. Mr. Goodson said he thinks he pushed too hard, and it should come back to the board. Ms. White asked for a motion.

Ms. White carried out the motion for the board to vote on executing the contract for financial advising through TAG. The motion was seconded by Dr. Wicker. Ms. White asked Ms. Dalrymple about her concerns regarding the name, address, phone number, Better Business Bureau, Rating, and pricing. She asked if anyone else had any comments or questions. Dr. Wicker said yes, and she thanked Mr. Goodson for bringing it back up and stated that she still had some reservations. She said that it is fiscally irresponsible for us to enter another contract without current 2024 financials . Dr. Wicker said that she is not throwing any rocks at Mr. Blackwell and that she appreciates what he has done, but potentially, it could be a lot of money so she cannot vote to enter this contract. Ms. White said that she hated that Mr. Newby and Holly were missing, but she would not talk anymore. She asked Ms. Sinnamon if she had any questions, and she said no. Erin said that she agrees that we do not have all the information regarding the current state of the finances and therefore does not think that we should enter into another agreement.

Ms. White asked if Mr. Goodson had any comments and he said no but after reflecting, be believed that be pushed too hard. Ms. White explained that Stewai1 Manor has been out of commission and should have been out of commission long before it was and some of the board members fought bard to get tenants out of the building, so TAG was brought in to help put together the financing for the renovation of the Stewart Manor, but they are not the contractors. Ms. Dalrymple reiterated that TAG does not do the work and Ms. White said that TAG helps us to find the money for converting it to a tax credit, etc. Ms. Britton said that what they are doing will be beneficial, but we owe a lot of money. She said as great as they seem, we are having a problem paying our bills. Ms. White said that at one point we owed over $200,000 for outstanding water bills with the City of Sanford. Ms. White said that she is not blaming anyone because we have had a lot of transitions. Ms. Dalrymple stated the outstanding balance with the City of Sanford from the May 2024 board packet was $161,092.07. Ms. White asked for a vote; all board members voted against the execution of the contract with TAG.

1000 Carthage St-Stogner Proposal
Mr. Goodson advised that we have a feasibility study on renovating 1000 Carthage St, the old central office. He said that he visited the old central office before he returned to Florida and was startled by some of the things that had taken place in the building from the building sitting. He said that Stogner, the architect who the agency has used for several years has put together a proposal that costs $6,850 to assess the building to give us a scope of service to bring it back online and so that the board can make an intelligent decision to determine if we have the wherewithal to restore the building or if the board needs to make a different decision about where we go from here. He said that the property is valuable, even though the building needs a lot of repairs . Mr. Goodson said that he made the recommendation to proceed with Stogner because we cannot allow the building to continue to sit. Ms. White made the motion and asked for a second; Dr. Wicker seconded, and there were no questions.

Ms. White said that Stogner did a feasibility study before and asked since they have already done one, if they could do better with their cost. Mr. Goodson said that if the board approves it, he will negotiate the cost with Stogner. Ms. White said that the reason she is asking is because before Mr. Goodson got here, the building flooded; she said something happened with the gutters in the roof and they had to tear up the flooring . She said that the previous board was trying to get staff out of the building because there was only one working bathroom with about 16 or 17 staff members in the building. Ms. White said that downstairs, there is open space that we were not using, and the walls were not up, but it is prime real estate. The previous CEO had this same study done to get the building up to par, we owe no money on the building and could not decide on how to best use the space; whether as a place for traveling nurses or something else. She said that though we had insurance, insurance for some reason was not responsible. She said that the previous CEO stated that maintenance was not cleaning the gutters like they should. She reiterated that the previous study was done before we moved out of the building. Sherri said that we have been out of the building for a year.

Ms. White said that she believes that we borrow the money on the place and at least fix up the top floor to get back in our building and then figure out what we need to do to the bottom We pay rent to lease the new building but have a building that we owe no money on so we should get it fixed . She asked what the rent is in the temporary building and Mr. Goodson said that we pay $4500 per month. Mr. Goodson said that with the current interest rates for a million dollars, the monthly payment should be about $6200. Mr. Goodson also said that flood insurance usually does not cover from the top down, it covers from the bottom up. Ms. White said that Stogner can go in to do the feasibility report but thinks that they should be willing to do it at a much better rate considering that they did one within the last 5 years. Mr. Goodson said that he will negotiate it if it is approved; he will follow up with them tomorrow morning. Ms. Dalrymple reiterated that if we approve it, we will get back into the building and rent out the bottom portion to recoup the debt; Ms. White said, we have not gotten that far yet. Ms. White asked if there were any questions, and there were no questions. Ms. White said that even if they do not move on the price, we can still work with them. Mr. Goodson said that he would negotiate, and they do want to work with us. All were in favor of moving forward with allowing Stogner to conduct a feasibility study for the renovation of 1000 Carthage St.

Carolina Council Conference
Mr. Goodson reported that the conference is scheduled at Myrtle Beach from August 25th through August 28th. He said that we have secured three rooms for board members, but no staff members will be going this year. Mr. Newby expressed interest in going, and there are two additional rooms available if any other board member wants to, and if not, we can cancel them. Mr. Goodson said that the conference is for the public housing council for North and South Carolina. Jeff said that it is an effective way to network with other people in the industry. Shen-i said that these are breakout sessions where the council will give updates on HUD policies, new initiatives, and new tax credit rules. Ms. White said that she will not be able to attend but hopes others will attend; the housing authority covers the hotel room and a per diem.

Roto-Rooter Finding-Jeffrey Blackwell, CFO
Mr. Goodson said that we are uncovering whatever we can about the finances and Jeff has more information. Mr. Goodson said that when he first got here in September 2022, one of the first things he had to tackle was that there was a 30K dollar transfer to Rota-Rooter but somehow, he was told that it got messed up on their end and they wanted us to send them another 30K dollars and he said absolutely not and then Rota-Rooter went away. Jeff said he received an email from Rota-Rooter saying they would love to provide services to us again and how we could fix the issue. He asked them about the invoice, and they said that it was $31,199.00. He said that the lady got sent to the wrong account. He said, in SACS when we do direct deposit, their account information is in the system. Ms. White said we filed a police report.

Jeff said that the only way that the information was changed was that the vendor submitted a document requesting an update to their banking information. He said that he looked for that document, so then he went into the system to see what banking information was there and there was none which tells him that someone took the information out, but he does not know. There is a draft file sent to the bank from SACS and the draft file from the computer shows the routing number and account number. He pulled up the reoccurring account number from previous transactions for Rota-Rooter and the one for the transaction in question, which was done on January 28, 2022, which is the last working day of the month, and ironically, the routing number from Google came up with Regents Bank, but the routing number for Rota-Rooter was usually PNC. He said that he spoke with a representative at Regents Bank to find if this account number was Roto Rooter's banking account number and if not, whose it was. The representative could not tell him who the account belonged to but asked if she could tell him if it was a business or a personal account, based on what she said, he concluded that it was a personal account. He then called Trust and spoke with Treasury and they are tracking this transaction to see if we can determine what account the money went to.

Jeff said there was a drawdown made on the 20th of January, and they did the direct deposit on the 28th of January to be done on the third. He said that if you don't look at the account daily and know how to read the various balances, you may not catch if there is something strange going on with the balances because it takes some time for the direct deposits to post, the balances will look the same until it goes through. Jeff called and asked Rota-Rooter if their bank account had changed since January 28, 2022, and he said no. He stated that only someone who has a login for SACS can make changes to account information, and only people who have a token to initiate and approve direct deposits can access the direct deposit module on the Trust site. He said that the $31 ,199.00 was taken from us and deposited it into a different account. Mr. Goodson said that what he was told was that it was wired but went to the wrong account on their end but now he is hearing something different, and he wants the board to know.

Ms. White said that she got a police report filed by Latrice McCrae on February 28, 2023 . She said that our attorneys responded and said that they were working with the former CEO to follow up on the issue that SHA attempted to pay Roto-Rooter a balance of over $31K, Roto Rooter's system was hacked, and the scammers sent a fraudulent routing number and account information. SHA made a payment to the fraudulent account and Rota-Rooter did not receive the payment. Rota-Rooter has yet to file a lawsuit, and the previous CEO was working with the bank to figure out where the money went. Jeff said, but something in our system got changed and Erin said that would not be a hack to Roto Rooter's system. Ms. White said that she is reading what our attorney Howard Rhodes wrote, he said in his email on January 3, 2023 . Mr. Goodson said so it sounds like we put the fraudulent information into our system and the payment was made. Ms. White said the incident report date is February 28, 2022, which was filed by Latrice McRae, so it has been ongoing. Ms. Britton asked if Latrice had given the police the email from Rota-Rooter.

Jeff said that someone on our end had to take the old bank account information out of SACS. Mr. Goodson said that if Roto-Rooter got hacked, then there should be a record. Jeff said that there was a drawdown for that exact amount. He said that usually when we drawdown money, it usually is done in batches with more people. Mr. Goodson said that when they got hit in Florida, it was not for the exact amount of an invoice. However, if the scammers saw the invoice, then they would know what to ask for and wonders if other organizations who use Roto-Rooter got taken advantage of it too. He said that he would let the board know if he finds out anything else. Ms. White said, "Who do you know that you owe $30K to and they do not come after you?"

Mr. Goodson said that he has had another contractor that did work for us that we owe money to out of Raleigh that has not come after us because he has handled it and said that we are not paying. Mr. Goodson said that he claims to have represented the housing authority during the RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) conversion but Stogner, nor the other contractors know anything about him. He said that he has invoices from him. Ms. White asked for his name and Mr. Goodson said that he would get it for her. He said that he had spoken with the man multiple times and told him that if we owed that amount of money, why had he not come to see us yet?

Ms. White said that she has not heard of any consultant that we owe a large amount of money to. Mr. Goodson said that we scrutinize every invoice. Ms. White asked if Mr. Goodson would like the emails about Roto-Rooter and Jeff said that he would like them. Ms. White said that once the police could not find where the money went, they closed the case. Jeff said that it was. Ms. White said, the previous CEO, had her personal accounts tied to the agency 's Trust account, right after OIG had just left. Ms. White stated that she did not know if anything was missing but the lady at the bank who discovered it said that this should never have happened. She said that the previous CFO worked from home during that time. She said that the agency wanted to do a forensic investigation, but the agency could not afford to.

6. Commissioners' Comments
There were no additional comments.

7. Public Comments
There were no public comments.

8. Closed Session
Dr. Wicker motioned to go into closed session to talk about personnel matters. The motion was seconded by Ms. Britton. Mr. Goodson said that he has paper copies of the CEO candidate resumes for each candidate. The board went into closed session at 7:11 pm.

9. Adjournment
The board meeting adjourned at 7:55 pm.

Marcus D. Goodson