The director says his removal stemmed from a reorganization at Sheltering Arms Senior Services in Houston. A state official says Sheltering Arms has addressed workmanship problems.
Sheltering Arms Senior Services of Houston has removed its director for the second biggest federal stimulus weatherization contract in the state after an investigation by Texas Watchdog revealed widespread problems with workmanship.
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs weatherization director Brooke Boston confirmed this week that Sheltering Arms had removed its top official for the program. The director, identified on the Sheltering Arms website as Scott Pool, is no longer with the Houston nonprofit, according to an assistant answering an administrative line Tuesday afternoon.
Contacted by phone at his home in Houston, Pool confirmed that he is out as weatherization director, but said it was part of a reorganization that began prior to the publication of the first Texas Watchdog story in mid-May. He declined to discuss the details of his removal, the reorganization or the Housing and Community Affairs report.
Sheltering Arms officials did not respond to contacts requesting that they answer questions about the dismissal of Pool and other changes made in the wake of an unfavorable monitoring report on the $22.3 million two-year federal contract by Housing and Community Affairs inspectors.
Boston told Texas Watchdog Sheltering Arms had added internal auditors to its weatherizing team, instituted new quality controls and agreed to slow the pace of weatherizing low-income home and apartment units. Department inspectors have been asked to make spot checks at least once a month on the work of Sheltering Arms contractors, she said.
"I think they have fixed or are trying to fix the problems we identified," Boston said. "We think their board and their management have been responsive to what we have asked of them."
Monitoring inspectors outlined the scope of the problems in a report based on inspections done in February and March at Sheltering Arms sites in the Houston area. Texas Watchdog obtained and published the contents of the report after making a records request under the Texas Public Information Act.
Texas Watchdog continues to fight to be able to inspect Sheltering Arms contractor work firsthand.
The state Attorney General is expected before July 5 to deliver an open records letter ruling on whether Sheltering Arms must provide to the public addresses where it has done weatherizing work. Attorneys for Sheltering Arms contend the privacy of the residents of weatherized homes supersedes the right of the public to know where and how its federal tax money is being spent.
State officials said that while Sheltering Arms had through March completed more than 25 percent of all of the homes weatherized with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars in Texas, spot inspections showed that more than 60 percent of their jobs required that crews return to correct work. The report said Sheltering Arms had spent about half its fund on administrative costs when it was not allowed to spend more than 5 percent on administration.
The state has done more than three dozen monitoring reports, none of them outlining problems as serious as Sheltering Arms. Although serious, Boston said she believed the changes made by Sheltering Arms would stave off sanctions against the nonprofit group that could include withholding funds, suspending the program or breaking the contract and finding a new administrator.
Only the city of Houston, with a $23.5 million contract, administers more Weatherization Assistance Program money in Texas. The Alamo Area Council of Governments in San Antonio has a $14.5 million two-year contract. The city and county of Dallas have federal contracts of more than $13 million each.
Contact Mark Lisheron at 512-299-2318 or mark@texaswatchdog.org. Mark has written extensively on the federal stimulus. Find all his reports by searching for the keyword STIMULUS at www.texaswatchdog.org.
Photo of a hammer by flickr user Kaworu Koneru, used via a Creative Commons license.
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