SHA March 25, 2024 Board of Commissioners Meeting Minutes
MINUTES
REGULAR MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE
SANFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY
MONDAY, March 25, 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, March 25, 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 William Newby, Vice Chairperson
- Commissioner Karen Wicker
- Commissioner Holly Aeschliman
ABSENT:
- Commissioner Erin Britton
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Ms. White asked for someone to make a motion to approve the board minutes from the February 25, 2024, board meeting. Mr. Newby motioned to approve the February 25, 2024, board meeting minutes. Dr. Wicker seconded the motion. All were in favor; the motion passed unanimously.
3. Financial Report
Ms. White stated there was no financial report but referred to the new CFO's resume who would be completing the financial reports moving forward. Mr. Goodson said that we have been searching for about two years to find the right CFO. He said it's been hard given the challenges we face as a housing authority; therefore, the CFO must be experienced and can help navigate our financial situation. He also stated that BDO is no longer doing the financials because when we switched the software from Yardi to SACS, they did not support SACS. He said we have not had a financial report in the last two board meetings but should have one for the next meeting. Mr. Goodson said in the interim, we have been conversing with Barfield and Kincaid, who specialize in the SACS software and were the fee accountants at SHA about twenty years ago. Jim planned to be here this week but one of the CFOs at one of his housing authorities passed away, so he is filling in the gaps. He said that though we will be working with their firm for about three to six months, we must have a CFO. Mr. Goodson said that he received a voicemail from Jeff Blackwell, the new CFO. He said that Jeff worked under him for several years when he was the Executive Director at SHA and left shortly after he left to go to Charlotte Housing Authority. Jeff has ties to the Sanford community and has three of his children live in Sanford. Jeffrey will start on April 15, 2024, when he is in the area. Mr. Goodson said that a requisite of the job is that he moves back to Sanford within the next 6 months. Mr. Blackwell said he was the Section 8 Manager previously, and Sanford is a good place to be. Mr. Blackwell said that the transition put him closer to his children and he does not have a problem moving back to Sanford. MR. Goodson said that he told Jeff about the challenges that we are facing. Jeff will be attending the financial course being taught by Jim Kincaid in May through the Carolina Council in Cherokee, NC. Also, some HUD trainings are coming up online that Jeff will attend as well. Mr. Goodson said that not many people are out there with his experience and background. Mr. Blackwell said that he enjoys doing accounting and taxes, so he's excited to have the opportunity and that he also coaches in the community. Mr. Goodson said that things are not as bad as they appear, because sometimes we have had the money to pay for things but because we didn't have anyone directing that they get paid. Ms. White asked Mr. Blackwell how he would like to be addressed and he confirmed, as Mr. Blackwell.
4. Department Head Reports
MGG
Danielle reported that the work order numbers are higher because we are doing the housekeeping inspections, and some tenants are not reporting when repairs are needed. She said we are currently waiting on supplies like blinds, gaskets, etc. She said that she would be filling out violations for when people do not report what is damaged. Ms. White asked if the tenants are not reporting because they feel like it's not going to be fixed. Danielle replied that she thinks that it is because their housekeeping is not good and/or they have people living in the unit who are not supposed to be living there and are therefore hesitant to call about damages. Sherri also said that the plumbing piping and plates were missing over many light switches She said that she thinks that some tenants don't call the work order in because they know that there are some things that they will have to pay for that go beyond the normal wear and tear. Danielle said that she has seen doors off the hinges, big holes in the walls, etc. Ms. White asked if this was Matthews Court and Danielle said no, they are good; however, Garden-Gilmore is different.
Ms. White asked Sherri to explain the incident that happened at Garden St. the night that she called her. Sherri said that when she arrived, quite a few police officers were looking for four young boys who ran through the development. An older lady had her door open, and they ran through her apartment to get away. Sherri said that the incident had nothing to do with Sanford Housing Authority, but she was impressed that there was a big police presence and that the police officers were engaging with the tenants. Ms. White said that she thought that it was part of the contract when MGG was renovated that storm doors would be installed. Danielle, the property manager, could not confirm. Danielle said that though the lady whose unit the young boys ran through plays victim, she has to keep an eye on the lady because she likes to have the neighborhood kids come to her house. She said that she thinks this is why the kids ran into her house because they are familiar with her.
Danielle reported the following for MGG:
Matthews Court: There were eight work orders issued but only three were done at the time of the report; however, they are getting done now.
Garden Gilmore: Thirty work orders were issued and only five were done but there were so many because of the housekeeping inspections and will be taken care of by next month.
Vacancies by the end of February were six but there will be more because she is having to evict people. Ms. White had a question about why the numbers did not add up for work orders. Sherri said that there are sometimes rollover work orders from the previous month. Ms. White asked if we could add a line for the work order report that shows the rollover from the previous month. Danielle said that we are working hard on getting the work orders done promptly to not have a rollover. Ms. White said that she understood because of the supply chain issues. Anesha said that in the last board meeting, Sherri explained that there are some months that there are rollover work orders, but we should add the column Ms. White spoke about for rollover work orders. Mr. Goodson said that he is working with the staff to make sure that we give correct numbers no matter how bad they are because when the numbers are inaccurate, confidence is lost. Dr. Wicker asked about the last line that showed that no tenants were charged for damage. Danielle explained that some will be charged next month but some will not because it is normal wear and tear. Ms. White asked if there were any more questions for Danielle and no one had additional questions.
Public Housing
Sherri presented the Public Housing reports because the Property Manager was busy all day with the REAC inspector, so she allowed him to go home. She directed the board to the maintenance report, she said that she has been working with the Property Managers to make sure that they are charging for damages and items that need to be charged to the tenant. She said that HUD does not provide funding to us to not charge the tenants, so we must collect when it is beyond normal wear and tear. Dr. Wicker asked if we had been charging people and Sherri said, no, no one has been charging the tenants. 226 Linden, you'll see basic work orders. When you look at the YTD numbers they are higher than before because work orders are being put in because of the quarterly inspections that are now being done. We are getting into the units more often. Ms. White asked if two emergency work orders were outstanding for Harris Court. Sherri said that she ran into a glitch in SACS where it is showing at one property, there is one outstanding work order but there should be zero; we will be following up with SACS regarding the error because it may have carried over from us previously having SACS. Sherri said that emergency work orders take top priority. Sherri said that she runs the reports each Friday and that the work orders are tripled compared to what they used to be because we are doing so many quarterly inspections. She stated that just to prepare for the REAC inspection, we have generated over 150 work orders because we did an extra three inspections to prepare for the REAC inspection. Mr. Goodson said that tenants may not report the issues, but we are being proactive by going into the units and writing up the issues ourselves.
Sherri said that the screen doors were taken off because the doors were broken, parts could not be located to repair them, and we currently don't have the money to replace them. She said had we not removed the screen doors, we would have had 141 findings in the REAC inspection. Mr. Goodson said that we like the screen doors, and once we can, they will be put back up. Sherri said that we scrapped the doors and got a little over $700. She reported that we have some vacancies, but we do have tenants for the units, we had to have vendors come out and make repairs on the vacant HUD-approved units because HUD put them back online because we can no longer leave them vacant HUD-approved; they are putting them back in our inventory and they are just counting days.
Sherri said that some units have massive holes in them, and no one knows why but we had to get contractors in to get bids. 229 223 Talley and 916 Oddfellow are all under contract. She said that she is going to send HUD the contract and they will then allow us to take them back offline so that the clock will stop ticking. Ms. White asked how Sherri got the contractors. Sherri said that she went out for bids, created the scope of work, and then sent it out. Ms. White said that she really knows how it works but she just wants to make sure that we are following our procurement policy for SHA. Sherri explained that she solicits vendors and sends them out to multiple companies and includes why we did what we did. She said that she has all her documentation, and she does follow the procurement process. Also, Hiram gave her a great checklist to follow. Sherri said, for instance, for the roofs, we sent the scope of work to three vendors, and only two placed bids for the work and we are sharing the wealth and using both. She said for these unit turns; we are using three additional companies for the six units. She said that they had to submit a price sheet so that they could not go up on the pricing. Ms. White asked how many units we were turning, and Sherri said six; the rest are being done by normal turn companies who are all local.
Ms. White said that she thought that our maintenance men were doing unit turns and Sherri said that every time we go to get it done something else happens like the REAC inspections. She also said that they can't do the type of plumbing work that needs to be done. Ms. White asked if we are sending them to school if they want to get it done. Mr. Goodson said that some will still be here if they want the training. Sherri said that we just hired someone who has HVAC certification and EPA certification who has proven himself; though he is green in maintenance, he can do some of the things that we usually have to have a contractor do, like he has already changed out a furnace; He can redo the air conditioners, instead of getting an outside vendor. Dr. Wicker asked if it was a skills issue or a capacity issue. Sherri said that we don't have the capacity, but you have to want to learn the skill. She said that all can learn but do they want to learn is where we are. Ms. White said that her concern is that we contract out a lot, so we pay contractors to do what needs to be done daily and are still paying people. We should make sure that if they want to stay, we should get them trained. Sherri said that she has this conversation with our staff daily. She said that she has changed it and now they cannot call the contractors, they must come through to her to let her know that they have at least evaluated the issue before calling a contractor. She said that she is now looking at contracting out for maintenance if they don't want to do it.
Sherri explained that Home Depot and Lowes offer some of the classes for free and she has offered them the opportunity, but they must want to go and make the effort to go. Home Depot has Saturday opportunities where they can go and learn, and HD Supply came and reorganized our maintenance shop. She said that Mr. Goodson brought someone in to fix it up and a month later it was junky again and no one would organize it. HD Supply gave us all of the bins and sent someone over to organize the shop with one of our maintenance workers. Sherri said that she has separated the maintenance shop into properties because you can't comingle the equipment so Public Housing is separate from MGG. Mr. Goodson said that the board needs to understand the challenges that we are facing because when we come down on the staff, there is a reaction. Mr. Goodson said that it is about desire, so we are still sorting through it. He said that some are skilled, but some are unwilling to do it. He said that we have had people telling us what they are not going to do, and we can't have that. He said that he would start over brand new if he had to. Mr. Ferguson asked when they get trained, will their pay go up? Sherri said that the person who is certified works through a temporary service for us right now but will become a permanent employee on April 15th. She wanted to make sure that he was worth his time. He said that he has had the most skilled maintenance employee to take him under his wing to see if he is worth the money and she said that he wants to learn, and we don't have to beg him to do things. Sherri said that we have a REAC inspection so she asked them to come in on Saturday and not everyone showed up like they said that they would. She said that the new people showed up, but the old people did not. Ms. Gilchrist said that she agrees because it's hard to find hard workers now. Sherri said that she and Anesha will be working together to get training and evaluation efforts going to get everyone some training and feedback on what is needed.
Sherri said that she had to find out why she had to call a vendor where seven vendors were called to do a job but instead, we should have given the work to the person we have on staff who is certified to do the work. She said that she must change the culture around here because we can't keep moving forward like this. Mr. Ferguson asked how long we give the tenants to pay for damages. Sherri said that she wanted to correct something that Danielle said, we are not in the business of evicting people; they are first given a lease violation and 10 days to fix the problem if they fail the inspection. On the 10-day notice, they are given the dollar amount of the damage. If they can't pay within that period, they are told to call so that we can enter into a repayment agreement. However, most should be paid off before the fiscal year ends, unless it is one thousand dollars or more and then HUD says that we can give them more time.
HCV
Keren stated that we received 10 more V ASH vouchers from HUD. Sherri said that we also received notification that we would be receiving 54,000 more dollars for the administrative fees for these extra vouchers. Sherri said that the VA asked us to apply for the 10 vouchers because they have veterans for the vouchers. Ms. White asked when the waitlist will be opening and Keren said soon, we have a meeting with our software company next week to discuss the online process and then put the public notice out. Sherri said that we should be prepped and ready because we want to put it out in April.
Ms. White said that she and Sherri disagree on the online versus the paper, especially for the ones who are older or the ones who can't read or write to be able to do it on paper. Sherri said that as a reasonable accommodation, we must allow applicants who are elderly and/or disabled the ability to complete the application the way that works best for them. She said but what we don't want is everyone coming into this small office space to fill out applications. Mr. Goodson said that the paper option is still there, and it will be in the advertisement. Keren and Sherri said that it will be advertised in the Sanford Herald and on the website. Sherri also said that we will be sending the advertisement to all the public service agencies as far as Fayetteville, Southern Pines, Raleigh, and other places. Ms. White asked that someone send the advertisement to the board so that they could post the advertisement and the link on social media. Ms. Gilchrist asked if they would be able to come to the office to complete the application. Sherri said if they have a reasonable accommodation and they need us to help them complete the paperwork, then that's what we already do and will continue to do. She said that we send out applications via email, online, and the paper version.
Ms. White asked how we calculate income. Keren said that we follow HUD calculations to calculate income. Ms. White said that someone in Sanford contacted her and said that they were overqualified for Section 8 with an income of $36,000 from the sheet they were given, versus $29,000 which was on their W-2. Keren said that we use current information to calculate income, so W-2s are from the past year. She said that we take between 4-6 paystubs and take the average, the more the better. Ms. White asked if we use overtime in the calculations because it is not guaranteed, and Keren replied yes. Sherri said that HUD regulations say that you will take the higher of the two; the W-2 from the former year or the projected pay from the current paychecks. Ms. White said that she wants to see the part that says that we include overtime. Sherri said that we must include it because we can't exclude income because it is a finding. Ms. White said that she wants to see the HUD language that says that you include overtime in income calculations. She said that she works for the federal government and has worked for the state, and they don't count overtime into the income calculation. Ms. White said that someone who is trying to work but doesn't make much because taxes are being taken out versus people who don't work and qualify is not flying for her. Sherri said that we don't have to like the rules, but we do have to follow them. Ms. Gilchrist asked what is done when they don't have income. Ms. White asked if we use the state verification process to verify income and Sherri said no, we use the federal program. Ms. Gilchrist asked if they are not working and what do we do. Sherri said that though they did not qualify for Section 8, they may qualify for public housing because the two programs have different income guidelines.
Resident Services
Shkera said that she would be running her Instagram and Facebook, but it is still a work in progress. She asked if there were any questions about her monthly report. She said Partnership for Children will be onsite offering some of their services and that they also linked her with Christian Community Outreach because her office has become a place for the children after school and they go straight to her snacks, so these volunteers will help. Ms. White suggested reaching out to the Sheriff's Department because they usually do Backpack Buddies; Shkera said that they sponsor 22 schools in Lee County. Shkera said that she did have 20 chicken meal dinners from Mountaineer for their Easter for Thousands; not as many as she applied for and what we are used to getting but she will be passing those out tomorrow for those who come to the event.
Ms. White asked how often Shkera is doing her housekeeping workshops and she said that she has reached out to get one scheduled, but it has not happened yet. She said that she thinks that housekeeping workshops were quarterly. Shkera said that she does not do the cleaning, she has seen some information and has given some tenants tips to pass the inspections. Ms. White reiterated that she was speaking about housekeeping workshops. Shkera said that she does have housekeeping presentations and she will get with the property managers to have them in the community centers. Ms. White said that we didn't want to stop the housekeeping workshops if they were working. Shkera said that she would check the administrative plan to see how often they should take place. Ms. White said that she thinks that it is the ROSS program and Resident Services tag teaming to conduct the workshops. Shkera did make a note that she is there by herself in Resident Services. She said that she does assist with the applications and is there to help the tenants. Sherri said that if the presentation is Power Point, they can include it with their move-in.
Shkera said that the Food Bank will be onsite to make sure that we have proper refrigeration to store the food items. She said that we would be participating in the Sanford Community Block party. Ms. White asked if we would have a team because last year the staff attendance was minimal. She said that she would be soliciting help from the SHA team and also, the previous ED allowed the participants to use comp time for volunteering for this event and they had about seventeen employees volunteering. Mr. Ferguson said that they pick a location every year in low-income or elderly neighborhoods, and we do yard work for them, and the city picks it up. Shkera said that we had four people last year. Mr. Goodson said that he would try to attend on April 27th. Ms. White said to make sure that she proofread her flyers for grammatical errors.
Mr. Newby said that it warmed his heart when he saw Shkera taking care of and getting the children off of the bus one day and that it meant a lot.
5. New Business
Mr. Goodson reiterated that Jeff is starting soon as the new CFO. Mr. Goodson updated the board about the kickoff call about Stewart Manor with TAG, the consulting firm. He said that before it looked like this was going to be reconstructed with a preservation deal but the more, he thought about it and the more feedback that he has received from the board, this may be a demolition reconstruction project. He said that the conversations start Wednesday with TAG regarding funding sources and timelines and that he would keep the board updated. Mr. Goodson also stated that we are looking at April 18th or April 25th for a staff retreat at the Civic Center to go over strategies for the next 12 months. He invited the board to come out and have lunch with the staff on that date. We are looking for someone who is a team-building coach who can spend the morning working with us as an agency on how to build camaraderie as a team. Mr. Goodson said that Sherri said that the maintenance team was doing a great job with the REAC inspection work and so therefore, he took them out to lunch; he said that they spent a few minutes talking about business but he just wanted them to talk. He said that we are trying to build a team.
Ms. Gilchrist said that she met a couple of our landscapers on Linden A venue and she asked them to cut down some of the tree limbs and they did. She was amazed at how responsive they were.
Mr. Goodson said that we are submitting 226 Linden Avenue for special recognition through the North Carolina Housing and Finance Agency (NCHF A). We are working with Karen Kennedy with the city and Stogner, the architect, to apply for the award by April 1st. He said that we could use some positive press for the agency and that 226 Linden has housed people in the community who were homeless so it has impacted the community.
6. Commissioners' Comments
Ms. White said that she sent the board an email based on a conversation that she had with the mayor. She said that the mayor contacted her today regarding Sanford Housing's water bills. She said that it was not a bad conversation but her concern is that we have not been paying all of our bills. She said January 2023 through June 2023 we were paying the full water bill but in July 2023, we started not paying the full amount. Though we are making good-faith payments, the concern is that we are getting further behind. Ms. White said that she told the mayor that she would discuss it with the board and Mr. Goodson tonight and that we have a CFO starting soon to assist with our finances because our CEO and CFO left at the same time. She said that she told her that we would have a plan for her by the beginning of April. However, she will email the mayor and ask her for some grace to come up with a plan considering that Mr. Blackwell does not start until the 15th of April. Mr. Goodson said that we could have it by the beginning of April. Ms. White asked Mr. Goodson for a good timeline to pay the bill because she wants to be able to give her a strategy for how we will pay the bill. Ms. White asked if we could have something put together by April 2nd. Mr. Newby asked if the money is there to pay the bills and we have to make sure that we are paying our bills. Ms. White said that if this had been a private citizen, they would have already cut our water off. Ms. White said that the plan is tentative and we will work on it. Ms. Aeschliman and Dr. Wicker agreed that we need a plan. Mr. Newby said that we want to clean up our reputation with these past-due accounts.
Ms. White asked that Mr. Goodson take her off of the bank accounts by May 1st since Mr. Blackwell is here. She said that she has been on all bank accounts since the CEO and CFO left.
Ms. White asked if anyone brought the by-laws. She asked the board about the last time they looked at their bylaws because they need to be updated and that each September, a new board chair should be voted on. She also stated that she is trying to help the board out because June of 2024 is the end of her term and recommended that the board may need to change the vote for a new chairperson to June instead of September considering that originally, September was the voting month due to the end of the fiscal year, but June is the month that the city votes on reappointment. Ms. White said that everyone needs a copy of the annual plan and our administrative plan; the administrative plan sets the policies for the agency. She said that usually, the board gets a huge book with all of this documentation in it. She said that board members should perhaps come early next meeting to take a look at the administrative plan because it tells Mr. Goodson how much he can spend when he can spend it, and how much the property managers have as a spending limit. Ms. White asked Mr. Goodson if he knew that he was the secretary /treasurer and he said yes.
Mr. Goodson said that he would get the board a copy of the by-laws. Ms. White told Dr. Wicker and Ms. Gilchrist that they both needed to reapply. Mr. Goodson said that he received an email from Bonnie and she will send them an application to reapply. Mr. Newby asked Ms. White a question and Ms. White said that she can't because she does not live in the city limits. Mr. Ferguson said that they talked about it last week in the council meeting and you have to live in the city limits to be on the board. Ms. White said that she could go to the city and ask to stay or ask the city to vote on it. She said that we work for clients in the city and the county limits. Ms. Gilchrist asked if we would have the by-laws at the next meeting and Mr. Goodson said yes.
Ms. White stated that the by-laws don't speak on electronic meetings and considering that COVID is over, we will not have electronic meetings. She also said that the by-laws show public comments and how people should sign in with their name and address to participate in the public comments portion of the meeting; they have three minutes to speak. After the comments are made, the staff is responsible for responding to the public comments in a letter, not at the time that the person speaks.
7. Public Comments
There were no public comments via email; however, there were people online during the meeting. Ms. White said that according to the by-laws, they would have had to sign up before speaking. An unidentified online person asked for the mayor's contact information. Mr. Ferguson said that she could contact him and gave him his direct phone number. Ms. White said that there is a three-minute rule and you have to state your name and address when speaking. The next person identified herself as Tonya Buie and said that she was someone who worked for the housing authority under the ROSS program. Mr. Goodson said, Tonya, we've been trying to reach you. She said that she didn't know the proper time to speak after the staff finished. She said that she had a concern and wanted to let the board know that the ROSS program would not reinstated as of December. She said that when she accepted the ROSS position, Ms. White interrupted her and said that she couldn't talk about personnel matters unless we were in a closed session. She said that when the board goes into closed session, they would talk to her first. Ms. White asked the other person who was virtual to identify themselves. Gabrielle Matthews identified herself and said that she was online for the meeting.
8. Closed Session
Mr. Newby made the motion to go into closed session. Ms. Gilchrist seconded the motion. The board went into closed session at about 7:36 pm.
9. Adjournment
The board meeting adjourned at approximately 8:35 pm
Marcus D. Goodson
