Auditor: California’s weatherization program virtually frozen

SACRAMENTO
February 2, 2010 9:48am

Delays by federal and state agencies have stalled the program to weatherize thousands of California houses against the winter cold and summer heat, says a report Tuesday from state Auditor Elaine Howle.

California’s total $275 million in federal stimulus and block grant money that was supposed to go for the program remains largely unused by the Department of Community Services and Development, the auditor says.

Delays in weatherizing homes — both beyond and within its control — could jeopardize the ability of the Department of Community Services and Development to reach, by the Sept. 30 deadline, a key performance milestone established by the U.S. Department of Energy as necessary to access $93 million in Recovery Act Weatherization program funds, Ms. Howle’s report says.

“Only eight of 36 service providers were ready to begin weatherizing homes as of Dec. 22, 2009,” she says.

Other problems cited in the auditor’s report include:

• Increases in the average cost to weatherize a home could affect the number of qualified low‐income persons Community Services is able to assist using Recovery Act funds.

• Improvement is needed in its cash management practices to meet federal requirements for both the Weatherization and the Recovery Act Block Grant programs.

• Its intent to use existing monitoring procedures for the Recovery Act Block Grant could result in a large number of subrecipients receiving no on‐site monitoring until well after Recovery Act funds are spent — increasing the risk that these funds could be misused.

The Community Services Department disagrees with most of the report.

“In broad terms, we believe that the Department’s current state of preparedness is more advanced than the … audit would suggest,” writes Lloyd Throne, the department’s director, in a response printed in the full report.

(Download the full report by clicking on the link at the end of this story.)

“Much of the information gathered by the BSA “snapshot” was collected and evaluated during the formational and transitional phases of ARRA. This is particularly true of the DOE WAP (Weatherization) program,” Mr. Throne says.

He says his department’s most recent survey of service providers places placed total estimated program production at 43,000 housing units by March 2012, “greatly exceeding” the auditor’s production estimate of 28,000 units.

California Recovery Task Force Director Herb Schultz says as far as he’s concerned, the weatherization program is right on track.

“To date, the department has weatherized 210 units with an additional 790 in the pipeline, putting the department well on track to reach its goal by September 2010. The Recovery Task Force is committed to making sure that California does not leave one dollar of Recovery Act funding on the table,” he says.

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