El Paso food bank is in compliance with pandemic aid requirements, federal officials say

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The dispute between the city of El Paso and the Tafel has been settled.

Officials announced in a joint press conference Thursday afternoon that both parties had resolved the dispute over the food bank’s record-keeping practices, which the city said violates federal regulations.

Earlier this month, the Fort Worth office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that the city lacks the proper documentation to ensure the food bank is meeting its goals of serving low- to middle-income families. Federal officials added that the city may have to return its line of credit to the federal government.

The HUD office issued a new letter Thursday reversing that finding and accepting the city survey as sufficient documentation for the food bank’s use of $ 3.7 million in coronavirus aids.

Stuart Schwartz, president of the board’s board of directors, said the letter shows that the board meets federal standards.

“This letter takes the pressure off the board,” he said.

Watch the press conference, courtesy of KVIA-ABC 7

City officials provided the HUD with a proxy analysis and demographic breakdown in September in an attempt to demonstrate compliance with state grant tracking requirements.

Nicole Ferrini, the city’s chief resilience officer, said it was the joint efforts of the food bank and the city during recent talks that led the federal government to overturn its previous decision.

“We spent eleven months working through the problems,” said Ferrini. “It is the proxy analysis that our team did and the work we did with HUD that ultimately brought this problem to a close.”

Nicole Ferrini, chief resilience officer for the city of El Paso, poses questions during a joint press conference with El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Thursday. (Corrie Boudreaux / El Paso Matters)

It’s a different tone than last week when the City of El Paso and the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank publicly argued over allegations that the Food Bank failed to keep proper documentation.

In March 2020, the city of El Paso received $ 119 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES funds to pay for unexpected costs during the coronavirus pandemic. The city has signed contracts with nonprofits and businesses to provide medical care, payroll, and other services during the pandemic. In August, the city signed three contracts with the food bank for $ 3.7 million in federal coronavirus aid.

The Tafel agreed to provide a certain number of food boxes to people with low to middle incomes. The contract also required the grocery bank to keep track of customers’ address, race, income level, and family size, which are standard federal requirements. The board and the city agreed that the board could be made on paper and that the board would keep copies ready for the city on site.

In the contract, the food bank agreed to document “unduplicated” customers or to ensure that the same person is not being prosecuted for multiple benefits. That’s a standard requirement for federal dollars, said Bill Schute, who heads the Washington Center for the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

The food bank said it had documented all of its transactions on paper for the estimated 2 million distributions.

The blackboard and the city said discussions about fixing the problem began in January, with a recommendation from the city that the blackboard digitize the documentation. Susan Goodell, CEO of El Pasoan’s Fighting Hunger, said about 30,000 records were digitized by AmeriCorps volunteers, calling it a “Herculean effort” that the board’s limited staff could not keep up with.

The contract with the city did not include digitization of the files.

Goodell told reporters Thursday that the food bank is making efforts to digitize its intake system and has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for permission to move away from paper forms starting November.

“Digitizing customer records is a relatively new process for Blackboards,” said Goodell. “That is certainly not common practice.”

She said digital recording in the 121 animal shelters, soup kitchens and pantries would take more time.

An internal audit by the city found that the food bank failed to provide required reports and customer data for three separate bailouts totaling $ 3.7 million. Without this documentation, the auditors could not verify that the panel was maintaining the end of the contract to provide a certain amount of food to a certain number of people.

The city told auditors that the problem would be addressed through proxy analysis.

In early October, the HUD Fort Worth office sent a letter stating that the city’s analysis of the food bank’s activities was still not up to federal requirements.

“The city’s continued failure to demonstrate compliance with a national target for its grocery banking activities may result in the HUD requesting the city to repay its line of credit,” wrote Shirley Henley, the HUD’s regional planning and development director.

A few weeks after receiving the letter, El Paso City Council unanimously voted to declare the plaque bankrupt and enter into a “settlement agreement.”

Stuart Schwartz, chairman of the board of directors of El Pasoan’s Fighting Hunger, criticized the city for publicly announcing last week that the food bank had failed to comply with federal regulations on obtaining CARES Act funds. (Corrie Boudreaux / El Paso Matters)

Schwartz, the food bank’s chief executive officer, said he thought the entire incident was preventable had city officials been more cooperative.

“None of this should have happened like that,” said Schwartz. “It should have been resolved, it could have been resolved if the parties had been able to talk about it together. That didn’t happen. ”

Cover picture: Susan Goodell, CEO of El Pasoan’s Fighting Hunger, answers questions during a joint press conference with the City of El Paso on Thursday. The two agencies announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accepted documentation of its food bank activities after the city announced last week that it had failed to comply with federal regulations for obtaining CARES law funds. (Corrie Boudreaux / El Paso Matters)

Disclaimer: El Paso Matters CEO Robert Moore is a board member of El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank. Moore was not involved in reporting or editing this story.

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