Jamestown Director of Development Crystal Surdyk presents to City Council Finance Committee
Jamestown City Council members discussed a resolution to contract with the Jamestown Local Development Corporation to administer American Rescue Plan funded programs.
Director of Development Crystal Surdyk said the proposed $500,000 for the contract with JLDC is a conservative estimate, with the overall estimate being closer to $586,000.
She said a full-time ARPA Program Manager and Part Time Community Outreach-Program Assistant would be contracted with to administer the ARP programs, “We’re looking at administering the 13 programs that were approved plus any other programs that may be coming on top of everything else that we already have to do. Our Code Enforcement cases are through the roof. We’ve had CARES Act funding to get out. We’re in the middle of an Annual Action Plan. It’s important to realize that this is on top of all the normal day to day stuff.”
Surdyk said these positions would be contracted through the end of 2026.
Council member at large Jeff Russell said he himself had sent four people to DOD to apply for the new roof program that Council approved in March, “I feel that this Council needs to move on this resolution. And if we’re going to be handing out millions of dollars, designating millions of dollars to these programs, we have to have someone that’s going to be running this program. I feel that we can’t expect your department to be handling these funds on top of your day to day jobs.”
Surdyk said the $500,000 request is less than a typical administrative allowance would be for grants, “For instance, HUD allows us a 20% administrative fee for all of our HUD funds and then there’s an additional 10% program administration fee for every single program on top of that 20%. So, we’re asking for roughly 10% total of what was approved.”
Mayor Eddie Sundquist added that with most of the Department of Development being union members, if additional work is added onto their existing duties, there likely would be a grievance to request higher wages. He said bringing on a contractor would help avoid that situation.
Leave a Reply