Eagle Pass Housing Authority Board tackles public housing issues
By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2014, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
The Eagle Pass Housing Authority (EPHA) Board of Commissioners held their regular monthly meeting on Thursday, September 25, 2014, at the Centenario High Rise Community Room located at 2095 East Main Street in Eagle Pass, Texas, tackling several public housing issues.
During the Monthly Departmental Reports presented,EPHA Board Chairperson Ana B. Gonzalez questioned the overtime hour disbursement schedule for employees within the Maintenance Department. Gonzalez stated that she felt that some type of balance was needed on the allocation of overtime work hours assigned to employees because two persons had received most of the overtime hours worked.
EPHA Maintenance Department Director Humberto Venegas replied that employees are scheduled on a seven day rotation basis in the event of overtime hours or repairs are needed. Venegas noted that there had been two incidents which required overtime hours to repair them and it just happened that these two persons were on call at that time.
“It has become historical that these persons at least one of them is always very high on overtime hours. We have so many people on the list that have zero overtime hours worked. There can be many possibilities that can occur when I see a discrepancy like that,” said Gonzalez.
“What we don’t want is problems. I don’t know if this is discriminatory but I’m sure that you can do that but if your one of the highest paid persons I personally would not want to pay that person time and a half. I would pay one of the lowest paid employees that can do the job,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez emphasized that she would not want for employees to come back and make an issue of not having any or few opportunities to work overtime hours and instructed EPHA Executive Director Mary Velasquez to work on this overtime issue.
Velasquez responded to Gonzalez that there are some EPHA employees who do not want to work overtime hours. “I don’t care if they don’t want to work the extra hours. If they don’t want to work, fire them! They have to work. We aren’t here to see who wants to work,” replied Gonzalez.
Velasquez explained that it is not because they do not want to work, but rather will only come and work their 40 hour weekly shift and do not want overtime hours. “It’s too bad they are going to work when they are told to work, period,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez then made a comparison to oil field employees and their work schedules and if there were employees that would not want to work extra hours that they would be let go immediately. “Bosses are the ones in charge and that’s the way it is. You try to help employees out, but when it’s not possible it’s not possible,” said Gonzalez. The Board took no action on the overtime issue as it was for presentation only during the Departmental Monthly Reports.
The Board discussed and unanimously approved a resolution adopting a capitalization depreciation policy for the EPHA.
The Board also discussed Agenda item No.6 calling for discussion and possible action the establishment of a 5 Year Master Plan for the local public housing authority. The Board unanimously approved the 5 Year Master Plan.
During discussion of Agenda item No. 6, Gonzalez jumped to Agenda item No. 7 regarding the establishment of an internal audit plan for fiscal year 2014-2015. The Board did not take a vote on Agenda items Nos. 6 or 7 and continued to proceed with a brief discussion of Agenda item No. 8 regarding the Eagle Pass Housing Authority Security Plan, which had been discussed earlier during the Departmental Monthly Reports. The Board took no action on Agenda item No. 8.
Gonzalez then jumped into Agenda item No. 9 regarding the Resident Service Committee meetings and calendar of events spearheaded by Commissioner Delfina Morales Garza. The Board took no action at this time on Agenda item No. 9.
Gonzalez continued jumping to Agenda item no. 10 regarding the creation of a Finance Committee. Gonzalez stated she wanted a total picture of the finances for the EPHA. “Through that committee you will show us how much net revenue, gross revenue, how much was spent on public housing, section 8 and what was done with capital funds on a quarterly basis. One of the most important persons under the EPHA after the EPHA Executive Director is the person in charge of our finances. If we go broke and you never told me, we can file charges and you’ll go to jail, because you never told us we are broke,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez once again jumped into the next Agenda item no. 11 without calling for discussion and a vote for the previous agenda item no. 10.
Agenda item No.11 was a discussion and possible action regarding Client Income Demographic Reports. Gonzalez stated she wanted to know the income profiles of four different income rules. “The fixed income, earned income, unearned income, and who is leading the household and various information that would give me an idea of when this people are going to be self-sufficient and what are the deterrents that are not allowing them to get out of the housing program. That is our ultimate goal , we are helping them for a while but our goal is for them to leave eventually once they can maintain themselves,” said Gonzalez.
Gonzalez explained that she was trying to obtain a study information from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where it states that almost 85% of individuals across the U.S and on HUD programs leave the program within 5 years. “ When you have all of this, then the next step is figuring out how many years each household has on the program locally,” added Gonzalez.
Gonzalez stated if the average for the EPHA was under the 85% average seen across the U.S., that there is something wrong.
“We must then make a comparison with other regions along the border to assess if it is something that is all around seen and unique to border communities. Why because a lot of people are coming from Mexico who are U.S citizens or have obtained their residency and we can’t deny them to live in the colonias. This is the information we need to send to Washington and tell them you know what your ideas are not working,” said Gonzalez.
“We want to be able to help them. Some of this people are trying to get out of that cycle of assistance and that is why we need this report.” Added Gonzalez
Velasquez stated that the EPHA at this point is in the process of attempting to procure the Federal Ross Grant to assist the EPHA and its service coordinator program asses the needs of residents of public housing and coordinate available resources in the community to meet those needs.
Gonzalez noted that is one of the reasons why it is very important to have someone who is familiar and good at the grant application process to better the chances of obtaining these grants.
EPHA Executive Director Mary Velasquez also presented the score obtained by the EPHA for the Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS) for fiscal year ending July 30, 2013 as a score of 90. “The assessment is based on four components, physical, financial , management and capital funds. We were deducted 10 points, 2 points were due to inspections of the residential units and we had 8 points deducted from management of operations, which is because of the occupancy problems that we have seen,” said Velasquez.
Chairperson Gonzalez was advised that the Board had not taken action on the previous Agenda items discussed by her. Gonzalez then asked for a motion to approve seven agenda items simultaneously from the EPHA Board of Commissioners because she had forgotten to call each individual agenda item for a vote after discussing them during the course of the entire meeting.
Gonzalez asked for a vote on the seven agenda items without asking for a discussion from her fellow board members, in violation of the Robert’s Rules of Order, and no Board member raised any questions or objections and proceeded to unanimously approve all seven agenda items simultaneously.
The EPHA Board of Commissioners include Chairperson Ana B. Gonzalez, Vice-Chairperson Rolando Salinas, Pete Venegas, Rudy Valdez, and Delfina Morales Garza. EPHA Executive Director is Mary D. Velasquez. General Counsel is Langley & Banack.
