Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

Hey, Commissioner Martin. Now that you're full, don't mean we want to stay. Just one thing before we get started. Are we all here?

We've been waiting for you a while. Hey, I'm here.

We have to reply to this.

Yeah. Yeah.

... ... ... ... For OCS and for other studies. Double time? The packet that you gave me. Oh, okay. All right. Okay.

Good afternoon, everyone. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, taking place at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10, 2026. Patty, can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Burrell. Present. Commissioner Snyder. Commissioner Lopez-Classen.

Present.

Chair Hazlett.

Present.

Vice Chair Gotsler.

Present.

Commissioner Nelson.

Present.

Commissioner Moore.

Present. All right. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. The approval of the consent agenda. Would a commissioner like to move approval of all items within the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

Okay. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Burrell.

Aye.

Commissioner Nelson. Aye. Commissioner Paz-Classen.

Aye.

Chair Hazlitt. Aye. Vice Chair Gotsler. Aye. Commissioner, I'm sorry, Commissioner Snyder. Aye. Commissioner Moore.

Aye.

Okay. Sorry, I took it out of order.

The next item for today's meeting is a general public listening session. This listening session is agenda item number B1, part of the 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 meeting, the Hackham Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301A. The purpose of the session is to give interested persons a reasonable opportunity to present their views to Hackham's Board of Commissioners. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. This listening session does not have a specific topic. persons to wish to speak if they have not already done so should sign up at the sign-in sheet located at the side table on your right for those who have prepared written comments those comments will be shared with the board any e-comments received by 11 a.m today have been distributed to the commissioners per open meetings law at a listening session the commissioners do not engage in a dialogue with the speakers but will be listening to all comments so they will so they may receive input from the public We ask that everyone be respectful of the process and of all of the folks either speaking as well as those who are here to listen. After you provide your comment, property management staff may reach out to you here at this meeting or afterward to learn more from you or to provide you with information related to your comment or question. It is critical that speakers respect the two-minute time limit in place for all speakers, so signs will be held up to let people know when they have 30 seconds left and to let people know when their two minutes are up. We also ask that the audience be respectful of the speakers while they are offering their comments. Whether you agree or disagree with what they have to say, you wouldn't want anyone to interrupt you while you're making comments, and the same is true for other speakers here today. Please, for your fellow neighbors and our residents, be considerate of their time to speak and let the board hear their comments. Please, everyone, mute your phones. All comments should be addressed to the commissioners. Any member of the public is welcome to share their input. If you are a HACM tenant, voucher program participant, landlord or staff and are willing to share that information, the board would find that information helpful, but neither being a resident or participant nor sharing that information is required to speak. Speakers may be asked to return to their seat or leave the meeting if they do not follow the instructions in order to ensure all of us in the room can hear unruly or disruptive behavior from either speakers or the audience is prohibited. First speaker we'll hear from today is Betty Newton, and then Diana Hinton, you'll be on the on-deck circle. Betty, if you'd like to come up to the front.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Okay, I am from Convent Hills. I am the RO Secretary. I am a RAB member. And a couple of things that I wanted to talk about was an unsafe ramp, and it's the ramp that goes to our parking lot. Packham did some repairs to it, but at the top of the ramp, there's a cement section that crosses over into the parking lot. That is cement. There are several cracks in it, and there is a very large hole in it. which makes me think someone, and we do have two residents with wheelchairs that are very heavy. That is a very, very concerning safety issue. The other thing I wanted to talk about was the 14 maintenance issue where we have a roaming team of four maintenance people, no maintenance people in our buildings full time. It's not working. It's not working because our building lacks a lot of the cleaning. A lot of the repairs are doing immediate. I've had a light out in my bathroom shower for over a year. It's not the first time it went out because somehow water gets in there and it puts the light out wrong. They repaired it. It happened again and it's been out and I've asked several times for it to be completed. Our maintenance man, when he was there, said he didn't know how, he didn't know where to buy the light that goes in. To me, HACM could improve by putting ambassadors in all of our buildings. They could also use SIR janitorial workers, which would be no cost to HACM in all of our buildings. I am the person that works for SIR that actually places people. So that is a way to improve the short staff of our maintenance staff. Okay?

Thank you. Ms. Hinton, you are now up. And then Mr. Sawyer, you will be following Ms. Hinton.

Welcome.

I have my only real concern at this time with Tatham is public safety reports, notification to residents that they are involved in public safety reports and information put in the reports through staff of public safety and housing authority. importance. So that's my number one concern is why are these reports being generated one sided and nothing is verified as to being true or not true. So that's all for me.

Thank you.

Mr. Sawyer, you're next.

Hello, everyone. Welcome. First issue, major issue that's going on with residents. Housing Authority hasn't had a grievance procedure fully in place for at least five years. I did do some research. Everybody's looking to get those scores up. I did find out there's a loophole, at least from what I'm finding out. That can lower your score. It has to be dealt with. I was at the RAD Board the other day. Issues that I've talked about in the past as far as certain people and stuff because it was never nipped in the foot. People were actually reaching the point where they start talking about common ground and stuff again. Something I said they had done before when they targeted people. I told them after I got fed up with it, it's all recorded. I said, you guys are starting to move into the area where you're talking about illegal activity. I'm not going to continue to have the conversation. When it comes to employees, it's kind of like if you're trying to get married or dating. If you keep the bad ones in the position, You're not going to get the good ones because you're spending too much time going through a cycle with the same old people doing the same old things, not trying to correct their actions. Especially you could read them the entire law, every handbook housing has, and you're going to end up with situations like we had where the residents are literally the ones doing public safety's jobs. trying to stop the employee from beating up on an employee, on a resident. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to provide comment today? There being no additional speakers at this time, this concludes the public listening session, which was part of the 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 meeting of the Hackham Board of Commissioners in City Hall Room 301A. I want to share the thanks of the Board of Commissioners for those who took time out to provide their comments today. They appreciate hearing from you and value your input. Item number two on the agenda is a resolution approving amendment to contract 23002 to Otis Elevator Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for elevator maintenance and repair services at various sites in the amount of $333,333.00. Staff recommends exercising the option to renew the contract for another year pursuant to the terms of the contract. The current contract authority is a not-to-exceed amount of $1 million expiring May 31, 2026. The amendment will add a not-to-exceed amount of $333.33 to the contract and extend it through May 31, 2027, with the option to extend any up to one additional one-year term. All of the terms and conditions of the contract remain in effect. Tim Hoy and Ken Barbeau will speak on this item.

Welcome. Please state your name and title.

Good afternoon, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Tim Hoy. Thank you for your time today. I'm the Procurement and Contracts Officer supporting the Modernization and Development Services Department. I present matters from a procurement, contractual, and compliance perspective. Today I'm presenting a one-year extension of the authorities elevator maintenance contract with Otis Elevator. Although this item is a standard one-year extension of the authorities existing elevator maintenance contract is an important action that serves both the authorities and our residents best interests for the following reasons. Number one, it ensures uninterrupted maintenance and support for a critical life safety system with no lapse in service, especially during this approval process. Number two, it maintains current pricing with no increase in contract costs or fees. while avoiding the administrative burden, transition costs, and service risks associated with changing vendors. And number three, it retains Otis Elevator with a proven record of reliable performance in a market with a limited number of qualified elevator maintenance contractors. I'd like to briefly address a question raised by Commissioner Yepez-Classen. The answer is yes. The proposed not to exceed amount of $1,330,000 includes all funds previously expended and encumbered under the current contract. Of the existing $1 million contract cap, approximately $970,261 has been committed or spent. leaving a remaining balance of approximately 29,739. Excuse me, Mr. White.

Yes. Can you read the question?

Sure. The question was, let's see, what is the, of the proposed not to exceed amount of 1,333,000 million, including all funds previously expended and encumbered underneath, under the current contract, and of the existing $1 million, what has been committed or spent.

Okay, thank you. Sure.

So the newly requested amount is based on prior expenditures and is intended to cover the next one-year period. Just one last thing. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the authority's ongoing partnership with Performance Elevator Consulting The firm under Paul Rosenberg provides independent expertise in contract auditing, modernization planning, and technical review for the elevator program. He's been an invaluable partner for the Housing Authority and us at the Modernization Development Services. So for these reasons, staff respectfully requests the Board's approval of this item, and I am available for questions if you haven't asked already.

Thank you, Mr. Hoy. Do we have any questions of the commissioners?

I'm not sure.

Commissioner Moore.

I just had a quick question. So when any of the elevators in any of our developments go down or we have issues with them, again, this is not including the regular maintenance. So I understand, you know, their requirements to do regular yearly inspections, whatnot. However, when elevators outside of that regular maintenance when elevators go down or if there are issues, this is the company that services them?

That is correct.

And when a request is submitted, what is the turnaround time for a technician to come out and take a look at it?

When we submitted our request for proposals, we provided a contractor's responsibility for work. And so what you're talking about is callback services. and the contractor must be on call, first of all, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A standard callback, there's two different callbacks. One is a standard one that may not be an emergency. The service, the commencement of that service must begin within two hours of notification from the housing authority to the contractor. So they have two hours to respond. Now, if it was an emergency acknowledgement by, any authorized service personnel must be within 10 minutes of notification by the housing authority. So it's a very quick turnaround. Excellent. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore. Madam Chair. Yes, Commissioner Snyder.

Thank you. Because almost any contract is new to me until I've cycled through, I have a couple of questions. Otis is a national company, is it not?

Yeah, Otis is, I do believe, is the largest elevator service company in the country.

Okay, yeah, you see there, you know, if you look at, when you're in an elevator, if you look around and don't talk to people, Otis is on, you know, a lot. But my question, it has to do with the contract. Is this an extension or is this a new contract?

No, this is an extension. The original contract was designed to be a three-year contract with two amendments. So this would be considered the first amendment to extend for one year, and then we extend the additional dollar amount.

I'm assuming it wasn't no bid back three years ago?

It was a request for proposals. So we had a number of bidders that we received complete proposals from.

Do you recall who they were?

I can tell you this, the same, there aren't many, first of all, but the same vendors that we currently are working with also provided proposals. Otis was the one that we chose as a group and also Paul from PEC. He selected TK Elevator is currently under contract at West Lawn for a few of the, buildings there. And then the final one is Schindler. And Schindler is our provider at Convent Hill. There's a few smaller ones that I can't recall off the top of my head, but there aren't many.

Our policy is to select the lowest bid. Is that not true?

Lowest responsible bid.

Responsible.

Yeah, that's correct. Lowest responsive and responsible bid. Thank you.

What were they? the lowest bid or the lowest responsible bid?

Well, this is an interesting bid because they did not provide, if my memory serves me, they did not provide a lump sum, but what they did was they provided a rate based upon all 13 public housing sites and the nine LLC sites. So there wasn't a lump sum. what we did select them on because of requests for proposals, was their history, was their qualifications and their experience, and then their rates we took into consideration. I will say too that this is a contract that was approved by this board, obviously not by the same commissioners today. That was approved in 2023. There was the previous contract was also an Otis and that was 2018. And so we have a good history of them and a good amount of data that we could fall back on to create a final award.

Okay, last question, Madam Chair. Sure. I got shot down once before thinking that Milwaukee contractors, as long as they were a reasonable bid, maybe not the low responsible bid, but a reasonable bid, might get some sort of, what's the word I'm trying to say? Preference. Preference. But Mr. Barbeau, let me know under certain terms that that was not permissible under our contracts. But I've been trying to think for the life of me, there is a Milwaukee elevator company because they have a big foundation. And I was trying to figure out, any of the grant writers around the table remember There's somebody.

Go ahead. Commissioner, I'm sorry, Vice Chair Gatzler.

I'm a commissioner too. I believe the company went out of business and took its assets and formed the foundation. So I don't believe I know I could be wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Roy, but I don't believe that there is a local elevator repair company in Milwaukee anymore. Now it's been a few years since I did construction in Milwaukee, but those are the, those are the three that you typically get the responses from.

Well, the nice thing about Otis is that on a quarterly basis, we meet with the elevator team that services all of our locations and they're located right here in Milwaukee. So even though Otis, even though their headquarters may be, it could be Illinois, they do have a Milwaukee office and, um, We do cherish that relationship because we can meet with them at any given notice.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Moore.

I think just along that point, Howard, I know there was a small local Milwaukee-based company. There was a staffer that retired from the city. She worked as an elevator technician for ages, started her own business, but small, wouldn't more than likely

be able to handle a contract of um of this size but there are very few and far in between i'm sure you're correct thank you do we have any commissioner nelson uh yes uh as related to otis elevator we hear about the lowest bid and i know that's a major factor but what about uh Response to call service, say elevator goes out. How do they compare Otis to other people who put in proposals? How do they compare in those areas besides being the lowest bid? Quality of service should be important. Response time, because I stay in one of the buildings and what's really a pain in the butt is the longevity of time. of the repair taking place. We have to consider, sometimes you have to get parts. There's a lot of factors involved. But you know how people are. They don't dwell that deep into what Otis has to do. They just want the elevator to work. So how does that play into accepting a proposal, size being the lowest bid, quality of service, respond time to repairs, things of that nature. How do you look at that?

Yeah, we do rely upon their, we do apply, let me see how I can explain. When we provide the request for proposals, we give them a responsibility of work that they must stick with. I, for one, am not an elevator technician or an expert, but who is is Performance Elevator Consulting. And not only do they work with us to check to make sure that the invoices are correct, they also check those response times in those invoices. He checks the billing to make sure that there are no fees or termination costs that are not part of the contract. He keeps a pretty close eye. on OTIS and the local maintenance techs to make sure that they do respond in appropriate time. Now, I don't have data, current data to support what their response times are. And we don't request that at the time of the RFP, but it's something that we take in consideration as far as their history and their expertise and their experience as compared to the other elevator companies.

So how has their response time been, meaning Otis?

Well, I wish I could ask right now and have some of the property managers here to possibly respond. And I know that you firsthand may have some experience with that.

Is that data we record? I'm sorry? Is that data we record?

as far as the response time is what you're asking.

Or if there is a service, an elevator service request, are we documenting? Because I'm going to ask for a data request, but I would love to, because I think you bring up some valid points. Apologies for talking out of time.

I do know that when it's after hours, it is recorded in terms of when it's reported to public safety. And then public safety makes the call. to the elevator company, and the elevator company responds as to when the person is responding. Now, there may be times where, say, it's 3 a.m., and one elevator is working, and so they say their person will be there maybe at 8 a.m., since there's still one working elevator. So it may not be within the two hours. However, we do track that on that side. When it's during the daytime, that's usually tracked by the property manager. We maybe should look into whether the elevator contractor can help us in terms of determining what the response rates are. Obviously, when there's a part needed, that time varies because once you come out, assess it. But on the regular repairs, They should be coming out. We expect the time that we requested in the RFP. And if they're beyond that, we can always hold them to the contract terms and reserve the right to terminate if really the service is bad. But usually we call them in, tell them what our concerns are, and work out a method so they get better. I think we will have to talk to Performance Elevator about monitoring that more carefully. Okay.

And did you state your name and title?

Oh, I am Ken Barbeau. I'm the Chief Operations Officer for Program Services. Thank you.

Okay, that answered my inquiry. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Madam Chair.

Commissioner Moore. And I'm so glad we have folks with, you know, just lived experience. That's why this is so, you know, I love, I just love that. I have to say that. But when we're this is helpful because as we're thinking about extending contracts, if we don't have any data points around centered around how they've done, right. Or, or, you know, we have a plethora of spaces that have elevators. You know, which ones are the ones that normally go down? What are the response time? Like these ones are really old. We're going to have to, you know, replace this in this year, whatever. But it would be good to know in the future as we're, you know, looking at extending contracts, that we have some data points to go with them to say this is how they've been doing because we're saying we're going to extend somebody for a year and we have no clue on what the response time is, you know, in some of the developments that, you know, people just don't show up on time, whatever. I don't know. But I think we need to definitely have some data points along with, you know, if we're extending contracts, just information, to help us make good decisions because we don't have a representative from every, you know, every housing development here. We have a couple. Right. And they can only speak to where they live. Right. And so that is definitely something that I would love to know. The other quick question is. Timeline, do we can we put this on hold and come back next month or is this time sensitive?

The previous contract ends this month, and so we would need to do the renewal probably this week. Got it. Best today, I think.

But as a result of this meeting, we will contact the property managers, make sure that they have the daytime response times to make sure that there are answers to your question. That would be amazing. For the next renewal.

Thank you, Harold.

If I may add something, it's not unheard of to ask that question for data points and specific callback times. At any given note, at any given time, we've actually asked Otis to provide reports on those various things. Even though we don't, I don't have a mechanism to track it, they do. And so if there's anything, you know, such as that data that we can get. I can ask Paul and Emily from Otis Elevator, and they usually respond promptly with reports. For example, we had one, Olga is looking for some feature, they want to do feature planning, and they wanted to see what the performance has been with their elevators over this past year. So,

I would love, yeah, no, thank you. I would love that for the, just for the last contractual year, you know, response times, the elevators that they've serviced, you know, it'd be nice to know that, hey, we've gone to this particular development once a week, or, you know, it just, it gives us some information so that we understand, you know, oh, wow, we have some issues with these developments, whatnot. But I would love to get a more in-depth report from them on, because, you know, we're paying them lots of money, of course. And thank you.

Thank you. Message was received loud and clear. And Mr. Hoy, you can take that back with your quarterly meetings and see how you can coordinate that and bring it back to the board. Thank you so very much. So we do need a motion.

So I'm sorry. Commission. Vice Chair Gadsler. I move that we approve the amendment to the Otis elevator contract.

I second.

Thank you.

Can we get a roll call?

Can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Burrell.

Aye.

Commissioner Nelson. Aye. Commissioner Snyder. Aye. Commissioner Pez Klassen.

Aye.

Chair Hazlitt. Aye. Vice Chair Gotsler.

Aye.

Commissioner Moore. Motion passes. Item number three is a report from the Secretary Executive Director.

It is my great pleasure to introduce our new CFO, John Larson.

Can we clap for him?

Has been a long awaited position.

Absolutely. Welcome to the team. Can you please state your name and title? You're so anxious to hear it. Sure.

Thank you for the opportunity. Welcome. We are so glad to have you join us. I think we are in good hand. We've shown up for a week.

You've been showing up now for almost six weeks. So I think we're doing really well here. We're on the roll. Yeah.

I also would like to announce that a offer has been put out and accepted by a new COO who will be starting July 6th.

That is awesome news. So thank you so, so very much. And we will let you continue on with your report. Thank you, John.

We will have an update from John and Ken about BDO activities.

Oh. Welcome back, John.

Ken Barbeau, I'm the Chief Operations Officer for Program Services. Back when we lost our previous CFO, we were in need of assistance, dramatically in need of assistance from folks who knew a little bit of what they were doing. We at that point decided we needed to contract with somebody to provide some urgent accounting advice and services when needed and technical assistance. BDO is a firm, it's a worldwide firm, but they have a strong accounting practice in PHAs. They work with a number of public housing authorities across the nation. And we put together a, we contracted with them for services that were provided as we requested them. So they were not It's not a regular contract. We identified some areas where we needed services, and when we requested them, then they would bill us on a labor and materials rate. So we have, since January, they've been doing some check-in meetings with us on what our questions were because they agreed to take questions from our finance director and our tribal finance manager. And so we do these very short check-in meetings. We have also walked through our cash management procedures with them. They provided some guidance. They had some good questions about, are you making sure you're getting the management fee, the asset management fee? Are you looking at getting these fees from the capital fund program, which can help your financial position. And so we were doing a lot of what they requested, but they were good questions and we walked through it just to make sure that we weren't missing anything. We also worked with them recently on some assistance with the audits. On the financial data schedule, When you are doing an audit or complete a calendar year or a calendar year or fiscal year, depending on what you're on, we're on a calendar year, you have to submit an unaudited FDS, financial data schedule, to HUD. And these are unaudited numbers that are basically just out of your trial balances, out of your general ledger. But you have to put it in a template that HUD has. And it's a very specific format, you know, by each property, by each program. And so we I did not have a lot of experience in that. Neither did our finance director at the time. And so we hired them to help us pull data out of our trial balances, put it in the right format and submit it to HUD before their due date that would happen. which avoided a failure to submit from HUD.

That's good news.

It may not have gotten us lots of points, but it saved us from a failure to submit. And so that was done. That is the first rough raft of those numbers. They will go through iterations where we'll revise them. That's not abnormal. That's something that all PHAs go through when they submit the unaudited numbers. They go through revisions. And then there will be a submittal of audited numbers once we have an audit. And that's usually put into FDS by the audit firm itself. In addition, they also have started to assist us on LLC audits. We are seriously behind in our LLC audits. And they should have, I mean, in a normal world, They're done by February, the end of February. March is not unheard of, but we are now in June. So they are assisting us where we need some assistance. They have taken on a couple items. I mentioned a few here, the 2024 Highland Gardens LLC. They're working on some reconciliation issues that we're having with subsidy receivable. The 2024 townhomes at Carver Park LLC, there's a few questions there. The West Lawn 7 LLC, they're responding to some auditor questions. Our auditor on all the LLCs is SVA. And West Lawn 5 as well. And so they are also trying to identify a staff person who can work on multiple projects. LLCs so that we can finish all the prepared by client documentation that has to get submitted to the auditor. So and double check what our staff has submitted has prepared as well. So we are utilizing them to the extent we can and to the extent we find it useful. Additionally, they've assisted us on the sustainability plan. They've done a rough draft of an accounting policy. The CFO is going to be reviewing that. He will probably be taking portions of it, maybe revising portions wholly from it, but we'll be coming up with a revised accounting policy as well as a cost allocation plan. These are two items that are in the sustainability plan. We need to submit them as soon as we can. I think originally I had estimated by the end of July. but we need those completed so that we can submit them to the field office and close out those items. So those are items that BDO has been doing, but because we've mentioned BDO at previous meetings, we thought it was important to kind of go through a little bit of what work they're doing for us. With that, I'll take any questions.

Do we have any questions, comments of the commissioners? Okay. There being none. Madam Chair. Commissioner Snyder.

Of course. Maybe Mr. Ince, I'm not sure either one of you, wouldn't accounting policies and some of the other things that you were talking about should, I would say, in a perfect world, go through a finance committee review? Of which we don't have one at the moment. Yes.

The answer is yes and no. I mean, it depends on the housing authority and the development of the finance committee. Some housing authorities will have experts who understand that policy. Most of the time the housing authority will either have an expert, such as John, who can create the policy, or we hire outside an expert in that field. But then there are housing authorities that do have accountants on their committee or on staff that would know what they're actually reading, and it would be reviewed by them.

Madam Chair? Yes, you have the floor. Thank you. Which are you recommending?

I would think that for liability, and that would be an attorney question. I think that an outside contractor would be the best because it pulls the liability off of the housing authority. Is that correct?

Greg Cruz with the city attorney's office.

Everybody can talk a little bit louder. We don't have to whisper. Everybody's listening.

Apologies. Sorry, Patty.

We got to record this, everybody.

I mean, certainly you can shift liability under a contract and ensure that a contractor has, you know, you know, insurance and things like that. So if there are mistakes that, you know, it's not, heck, I'm going out of pocket. Um, there's a contractor that you can lean on. Um, yeah. So yeah, I think generally speaking, that's accurate.

Thank you. Madam chair. Um, so let me go back to the yes and no. Um, One of the things that we talked about before you came was the establishment of a finance committee, which I just think is good practice. I don't know about for housing authority, but certainly for most nonprofits. And so my question was, which are you recommending, the yes or the no? And I think we got it. I mean, you asked about a policy.

Correct.

um there are two components to this the policy is one the finance committee reviewing the monthly budgets and uh questioning why we are there are anomalies on that that is absolutely excellent it also gives the board a uh a comfort level because it's coming from the other board members that have looked at it so that they know that we are not hiding information or covering anything up, not that our staff would, but it can happen. And it helps with transparency. So having a finance committee in general is a good thing, yes.

So just to make myself clear, I didn't think about anything until I heard the word policy. And I can see what you're saying, that there are certain things, policy or not, that should be that there are different ways of being able to address it. But I heard the word policy and I went immediately to a part of my governance responsibility.

Right, right.

no i mean your question was a good question yes there were two parts to that question fair enough thank you commissioner snyder do we have any other questions comments just uh commissioner nelson mr barbeau uh you just stated earlier that we're behind in uh the llc audits and of course we're getting assistance from BDO, correct? Correct. So how well are we doing now that we've gotten assistance? And what I'm trying to do is distinctly separate where behind. I joined this board because I want to help move forward and not just continue with problems, but The essence of the question is, and generally speaking, what are we doing to move beyond being behind? And you could just state it generally.

Well, we hired John.

We hired a CFO. I just need to hear it. Everybody's different. So I'm trying to obtain what I need as a commissioner.

Okay. So A, we brought on BDO in the... before even John came on board and they've only really been working on that LLC issue for probably the last two weeks. And so it has been a very short period of time that they've been working on that one. In addition, now that we have the CFO, he'll be evaluating staff capacity and our staff skills and experience to assist in making sure that we have the right people in the right places so that we can get this done and trying to get to why are we behind and what is causing that. And so, John, do you have anything in general that you want to add to that?

The only thing I do want to add is it is a priority to get those office staff So I can't really speak to an evaluation or an assessment of why that has happened.

But we also are going to have cross-training in departments so that people aren't working in silos. And if John leaves, things won't stop dead like they did in the past.

Right. That's correct. So I want to say thank you. Once again, everybody's different. As a commissioner, I don't want to assume anything. And to me, communication is very important. So when I ask a question, it's because I personally need certain information. I'm not going to assume anything. This stuff is too critical to play games with.

No, and the fact that you asked questions may have prompted other people to hear something they were not aware of. So that's great for asking the question.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Vice Chair Gatz.

Thank you. So that just opened the door for me to say, do you, between or among the three of you, basically, Do you have any sense of when the remaining audits for the LLCs will be completed? I think you said by the end of July. Do you think they'll all be done by then?

I said by the end of July, we would have the review of the accounting policy, the cost allocation plan. I'm sorry. So on the audits, I do not have enough information to give you a good Timetable. I know that our finance manager for Travaux has done some preparation of the prepared by client work papers for the auditors. The auditors have wanted to make sure that the first audits are complete and accurate first and finalized before they move on to new audits. And I believe some of the issues that we're seeing is in the area of reconciliations. So I want BDO to help figure out what these issues on reconciliations are and what might be causing that.

Thank you.

The only thing I have to add is I will ensure that everything that was in our control is done as quickly as possible. We are a little bit dependent on when the auditors can do their work. So it's hard to say exactly what it is.

Sure. Okay. Thank you. We will turn it back over to Harold to complete his report.

As the board knows, we got our CMAP score for 2025, and it was a 35. a corrective action. We received a letter from HUD asking for explanation.

That's the next item. I think your report has concluded.

Yes, my report has concluded.

Okay.

So that concludes the report. Item number three, the report from the Secretary Executive Director. Okay. Item number four is a presentation regarding CVRCMAP 2025 scores and the corrective action plan. And If someone could explain what CMAP is, too, at some point. Tracy Sheffield, Michael Tonovitz, and Tina Royalty will speak on this item. And I don't know if you have anybody else.

But, Harold, we will. We didn't mean to interrupt. We just, for the record, had to read the item. No. But is there something else you would like to interrupt? Yes. So if you would like to complete your thoughts around what you were saying. Okay.

So I was going to introduce CVR to explain what happened for 2025 and the corrective action that they have actually been doing to correct the program so that it operates correctly. So you will hear scores and all as to where we are as of today. and turn it over to CVR.

Thank you. Welcome. Please state your name and titles for the commission.

I'm Michael Tonovitz. I'm the co-president of CVR.

Tracy Sheffield, Senior Vice President, CVR.

Senior Royalty HCV Director.

Welcome, everyone.

Well, good evening, everyone. Tracy's going to get into the weeds, but I'm going to do a high-level overview for the board CMAP stands for Section 8 Management Assistance Program. It is 14 indicators that HUD uses to measure the performance of the voucher program. Each of them have different point values, and there are certain thresholds you have to meet to get those point values. Some are 20-point indicators that are considered extremely important. Some are only 5 or 10-point indicators, but each of them, and Tracy will talk about it in more detail, each of them Some of them are measured based upon something you must do every year. For example, the board, I believe it was last fall, adopted what are called utility allowances and payment standards, things you just have to do once a year as part of the program. Some of them are measured by quality control. So you're constantly reviewing your files and assessing how are you doing. Are you properly pulling people from the waiting list? Are you properly calculating the family's income and therefore their share of rent? And some of them are measured through a system called PIC, Public Information Center, which we're going to talk about a little more later, but I just, and so, and then, so we'll talk, some of those are, some of those scores, we have, we assess how we're doing internally and monitor, but at the end of the day, HUD gives the final scoring on how we do on some of those indicators. And remember that we're going to talk about PIC more in detail when Tracy gets into her presentation.

Thank you, Michael. Tracy Sheffield, Senior Vice President with CVR. So as Mr. Ince mentioned, we actually got a 34 for last year for our performance for the entire year. As Michael mentioned, there are 14 indicators that HUD uses.

34% in the total score, not 34 points.

Correct, 34%, yes. There's a point score and a percentage score, and sometimes that can get confusing. So I'm going to go through each of the 14 indicators. For any of the indicators that we did not receive points for last year, I'm going to explain what corrective actions we took on those matters. and where we stand currently with our scores. The first indicator is for waiting list selection activities. So this makes sure that we follow the selection process when pulling families off of the waiting list for eligibility. We did receive full points for the last year, and we are currently in 100% compliance this year. Indicator two is rent reasonableness. So when a family moves to a new unit or there's a rent increase, things like that, we do a review to make sure that the rent that the landlord is charging is comparable to unassisted market rents in the area. We did not receive points for this indicator for last year, but we have taken several measures since that period to to correct these items. One of the things that we did, which I've discussed in the prior board meetings is an implementation of an API process used through affordablehousing.com, which is where we get the comparable information. What this process does is improves the consistency of the unit data that we pull, reducing human error. We also increased our quality control reviews of these files to make sure that the staff are doing items appropriately. Currently, as of through the first quarter of 2026, we are also receiving 100% compliance scores for this indicator. Indicator three is adjusted incomes. This is making sure that we're calculating the adjusted income for the family appropriately, which in turn affects their tenant portion of rent. Last year, we did not receive points for this indicator. We have been doing ongoing training with the staff. We've increased QC oversight of the file review process, and the retraining includes income calculations and documentation standards, and we did a heavy focus on correcting any legacy files and improving consistency moving forward. Our first quarter score is also for this indicator at 100% compliance, so far receiving full points for this year. As Michael mentioned, there are things that you do once per year. Indicator four is utility allowances. We did do a resolution at the end of last year to set new utility allowances for January 2026. So that indicator is done and solidified for the year. And we are receiving full points. Indicator five is quality control inspections. This indicator essentially makes sure that our inspectors are – inspecting according to former HUS, now INSPIRE standards. What we do is we have an inspector go out and QC the original inspection, make sure it was done correctly. This indicator makes sure that you do the appropriate number of QC inspections based on the number of units that are being assisted for that calendar year. So we look at a cross-section of neighborhoods and a cross-section of the inspectors itself. and make sure that we get the appropriate number of QC inspections completed based on the number of units that are assisted for that year. Inspections enforcement is indicator six. This was another indicator that we did not receive points for in last year. This indicator tests whether any enforcement actions need to happen, whether it is a landlord who did not correct inspection deficiencies within the required timeframe, or tenant cause deficiencies to an inspection within the required timeframe and making sure enforcement activities, which could be abating the HAP that goes to the landlord otherwise and stopping that payment or proposing tenant termination if they did not complete their actions. We've strengthened enforcement tracking timelines. We have reinforced the use of our abatement tracker that we have in our inspections management system and we've improved our coordination between the inspections and case management teams with stricter follow-up protocols for failed inspections. Through the first quarter, we are also in 100% compliance for this indicator for this year.

If I may, I just want to share one tidbit on this. We were 100% compliant with this by the second half of last year, but because we have to look at the entirety of 2025, where were we at the beginning, where were we at the end, we just... Even though we were there at year end, we didn't feel right certifying compliance because we weren't there at the beginning of the year.

Expanding housing opportunities is indicator seven. This is another one we've discussed in the last few board meetings. What we needed to do was include a map that tells tenants who are moving where the areas of opportunity are in the Milwaukee area where they can They may have lower crime rates, more job opportunities, easier transportation access, things like that, that also deconcentrate poverty. And so we did reach out to a member of HACM to try to get any mapping that was available. I think that person also reached out to the city. They were not able to get mapping. And so we went outside for this mapping and got it done. It just wasn't done by the time the fiscal year ended. But that is done. And I have included how we've integrated it into the briefing materials on page three of our report. So you can see how we've indicated that and how it's presented to families so that it can help them make better choices on where to reside and think about those things as they're looking for housing. Indicator 8 is another one of those you do one per year. We did do a resolution at the end of last year for payment standards for January 2026, and that indicator has been finalized, so we are in compliance. Indicator 9 through 12 and 14 are These are all indicators that come out of the system that Michael reported on, HUD's PIC system. This information is reported monthly, and we use these reports to track our scores as we move forward. For indicators 10 through 12 and 14, we would have received either full or in part points for all of these indicators. with the exception of one thing happening, and it's called the PIC reporting rate. To simply explain the PIC reporting rate, if an agency has 100 families that it serves, it expects to receive 100 reports of that information. If it only receives full reports for 99, you have a 99% PIC reporting rate for simple terms. By the end of the calendar year, Also for these four indicators, you have to have a 95% PIC reporting rate or higher in order for those scores to actually count. And what happened at the end of last year in December was that reporting rate was at a 94% instead of a 95. So it did not count the points we would have otherwise received for compliance for those indicators. I did not include indicator 9 in this, and we did not self-certify points for indicator 9 for annual recertifications because we were still working through the late recertifications at that point, so we wouldn't have received points either way for that specific indicator. Indicator 13 is utilization, so this looks at either the number of vouchers that you have leased or your annual budget authority and making sure that you are utilizing the funds or the vouchers that HUD provides. We did receive full points for this indicator. One thing that I would note for this year is we are still in a funding shortfall, which means that we cannot issue vouchers to Section 8 tenants or HCV tenants at this time. I have sent a request to HUD's shortfall team to review our status, as I think we are out of shortfall officially, but they have to release us in order for us to issue vouchers. And so I think he indicated that he was available next week. So I should have more information at the next board meeting on if they're officially taking us out of shortfall. Michael, is there anything else you wanted to add about that right now?

No, thank you.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore. Forgive me, just really quick. So when we talk about issuing new, we're requesting that we start issuing new vouchers because whatever we currently have has already been issued. Am I saying that right?

So we get a set number of vouchers to issue. Over time, you have something that happens called attrition. So tenants either port out to another program or they get terminated if they're not in compliance. And that number of vouchers that are actually being used starts going down. Got it. So that means that in simple terms that an agency has to pull more families off of a waiting list to fill those vouchers once they become available. So that's what we're looking to get to a point to with HUD. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Just a bit more clarification. If for any reason HUD does not fund 100% of the vouchers allocated, we're I say we, but no housing authority is allowed to lease up beyond the available funding. So that's when we say we're at shortfall, HUD did not adequately fund the program. So we had to stop, stop all those new leasing activities, but we're optimistic that in the second half of the year, we're going to restart that.

Thank you. Madam chair.

Yes. Commissioner.

I know, but some people might be a resident of someone say, for example, they have a voucher already. And, um, They want to move. They can't take that voucher and move right now, right?

No, they can. They can have a voucher right now. They can move. They can either move to another location in Milwaukee or they can exercise their right, which is called portability. And they can take that voucher to another part of the country, California, Georgia, Florida, wherever, as long as that agency also provides housing choice voucher assistance. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure.

Because when you're in shortfall, normally if a family's in a project-based unit, they can move with the next available voucher. So if a family's in a project-based unit and we're in shortfall, there is no next available voucher. But if somebody's just in a tenant-based unit, they can feel free to move, but we can't. Moving somebody out of it, we can't give somebody a voucher in a PBV unit because we have to fill that next PBV unit. So it would actually result in increasing leasing. Yeah. I know it depends on your circumstance. I know it can be a little complicated. But just so again, the tenant-based families can move with assistance. The project-based can't until we're released.

Thank you. I just wanted to make sure in case someone else is listening that they do hear this. Thank you. Instead of calling me all the time.

Thank you, Commissioner Burrell. All right. If I can proceed. Indicator 14 is family self-sufficiency. So the family self-sufficiency program is a kind of a sidecar program to tenant-based or project-based assistance where the family can work towards achieving goals for self-sufficiency. This could be credit counseling, if they have an interest in homeownership, getting a job, getting their GED, things like this, they can use this program to get connections to resources. This particular indicator, we share responsibility with the HACM FSS coordinator. The coordinator will work directly with the families on their goals and trying to help them reach them. This is a five-year program. Our responsibility is making sure that their FSS information gets reported to HUD. So this is one that we coordinate with HACCP's FSS coordinator on. For this indicator, we would have received five of the 10 available points for last year if it weren't for that PIC reporting rate issue that I mentioned earlier. In order to try to get more families, because we do have what's called mandatory FSS slots, The goal is to try to get more families participating in this program. So we coordinated with the FSS coordinator at Hackham to try to increase marketing efforts to make more families aware that this program is this, this program is available to them. We got some flyers from the coordinator that we placed in the lobby at 5011 West Lisbon. We let our customer service staff know, like, this is what this program is. If anyone shows interest, let's get them in contact with the coordinator. The coordinator also provided targeted outreach to families who may be good candidates for this program. If they just got a job or if they're in connection with other supportive services like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, those can be good qualifying families that may benefit most from this program. The other half of the points for this or the other portion of the points for this indicator is the percentage of families that are receiving escrow or generating escrow. What escrow means is, so there is a baseline amount of income that when the family starts the program, what their earned income is when they start the FSS program. As they get more earned income, their tenant portion of rent goes up and the HAP payment assistance goes down. there is that HAP that would have otherwise been paid, it goes into and set aside an escrow account for them. And if they graduate successfully after that five-year period, that money can be released to them. If you recall, early in 2025, we provided escrow payments to about 14 participants that had been waiting. So it's kind of a two-part indicator, but we are working with the FSS coordinator to try to get increased interest and participation in the program to help get the scoring up for the syndicator.

Madam Chair?

Commissioner Moore.

Really quick, how many FSS coordinators do we have?

One.

Hold on. Just a second.

There are actually two FSS coordinators at this time. We do receive reduced funding from HUD this year, but at the moment we still have two folks who can do that. We only get funding for a half of an FTE from HUD at this time, full-time equivalent at this time. Okay, so stay right there really quick, Ken. Sorry, Ken Barbeau, Chief Operations Officer for Program Services.

Ken, so really quick, because the mandatory slots, how many, what is the number of mandatory slots that we have to fill?

I believe it's 93.

Okay. So, and is it like, does it work on a calendar year? I just need some help understanding.

People sign five-year contracts. And so at any one point in time, you're serving 93 people. That's the number they're looking for.

Got it. In sort of this five year. Yeah, they sign up.

But every year we do have to have 93 slots. Okay.

Okay. So with that, does our FSS coordinators, are they going out? Like, what is their responsibility since we only have a couple? Are they going and and I'm going to come back to the 93 question, but what is their responsibility to really support? Because this is important. And, you know, when I talk to residents, they don't know that we even have this option available. Right. So what is their responsibility in recruiting? Because 93, it sounds small, but it sounds like it might be a lot of work to just get 93 folks.

Well, and people always are dropping in or out. In or out, sure. Yep, I get that. Yeah, they are responsible for recruiting. I do know because I see the mail go out that they're sending information to people. They're making calls. As Tracy mentioned, they're working with people that they have identified who call asking for help with finding jobs and things. So those are good candidates for the FSS program. Because in the FSS program, and we also promote it through Hackham Hub at times as well, because we have had people who have finished their five-year contract, or maybe they even graduated early and have earned $20,000 or more through the program that they can use as a down payment for a home. Or they can use it for whatever they like. Sure. Sometimes they use it to pay off credit. Sure. But that is, if they graduate from the program, that money that they have put away. Now that is, as Tracy said, the difference between what their earned income was at the beginning of the program and during the program, if it increased their rent, their portion of the rent, that increase in the rent, that's what goes into the escrow account.

Wow, okay, and then lastly, of the 93, where are we at? I don't think I, I can't remember if I caught that number. Roughly. It's somewhere in the 50s or 60s. Okay, thank you, thank you so much.

Chair. Vice Chair Gosselin. I'm not sure I heard you correctly. Did you say, Ken, that we are only funded for a halftime person?

We are this year. We had been funded last year for two slots. And the reason was, I believe, because we've been doing the reconciliation of all the 5058s, our PIC numbers were down. And that was what HUD is basing it on is the numbers that are in PIC. And

So technically a half-time person is expected to manage 90, well, it'll be over the course of a year, it'll be more than 95, but, you know, let's say 120 different potential households in the program. Am I missing something?

No, no, you're spot on. I mean, that's what HUD funded us based on the numbers in PICC. So what HUD is looking at is we had X number in PIC, a half of a full-time person, a part-time person can handle that. We would have to give back up to 93 to hopefully get that funding back.

Wow.

And actually, I think we, I mean, we'll get, you get increased funding. number of positions based on the number. So you don't even have to get up to the 93 necessarily, but you have to get a certain number of that. I think it's 75. But the fact of the matter is, even if you lost, let's say we lost funding completely, we would still need to make sure we're serving the people who are currently in the program through the end of their contracts. That's When they sign up for the FSS program, because it's voluntary, that's part of our commitment.

Right. And so, wait, for clarity. Commissioner Moore. I'm sorry. Commissioner Moore. We have two or no. How many people do we have as far as coordinators?

We have two. Full-time. Full-time coordinators. They were both on staff last year as well, but we're currently only getting funded from HUD for... Half of a person.

I got it. But we're paying for.

We're paying for the rest.

The difference. Covering the difference.

Thank you. Yes.

Commissioner EFS Glasser. Okay. I don't. know if this is on or not but so just to clarify too um um because i it sounds like every year new participants are added and then it's a five-year contract with them so it's possible that the coordinator is meeting with more than the 95 or 45 or 54 that they have signed on for the year they could have folks from the four years that haven't been completed Previously, so from open contracts?

You don't have to sign up. Once you hit your certain goal, you don't have to keep signing people up every year, but as long as they continue in the program. If they drop out, then you do.

You just have to have an active enrollment.

Yes. Not every year, 93 new ones.

Yes.

The questions.

Okay. So to summarize, as of our latest summary for this year, of the 145 points that we are eligible to receive through CMAP, currently we are eligible to receive 125 of those or 86% compliance. This pushes us currently at, obviously we have the rest of the year, which we'll continue to do testing, but currently we are well above the minimum standard for a standard performer under CMAP. So we have made a lot of progress.

That's great. Thank you. That's the improvement that the commission is looking for. 80% compliant is a significant jump from Where were we last year? 34? 34? I would just like to highlight that. 34 to 125 out of 34 to 86.

There's a percentage and a score.

The percentage, yes. Yes. So, I mean, that's a significant jump. And that's certainly commendable efforts on your behalf. And I'll leave it right there. But thank you all for the increase in activity. And if we're at 86% as of June, or was that as of? That's first quarter. First quarter. That's great. So projecting 100%.

We have three years to go with those scores, but we are hopeful. Just don't go backwards. We're going to try our best. We're going to try our best.

Okay. Wonderful. Do we have any other questions? Commissioner Yepes, Klassen, and then Commissioner Barone.

Hi. Just two more questions. Maybe it could be one. But what are the next levels? And then, you know, above standard, you know, like what's next? And then, you know, how many more points do we need to get there?

Yeah, so there are three classifications. There's three classifications. There's troubled, there's standard, and there's high performer. So right now we're at a standard as the interim score so far for this year. To receive a high performer status, you have to have a 90% or higher. We're at 86 currently. And what do you need for standard? 60% or higher. 60% to 89%.

Thank you. You're welcome. We could potentially do it.

Yes, we could. Commissioner Burrell. This is concern of some concerns. I get phone calls all the time regarding phone services and also emails. How often, I mean, how often, I mean, how long does it take for, let's say, for example, five email you all to get a response on that? And then also regarding phone calls, regarding residents trying to, contact the office don't get through I'm a witness I just buried my sister my niece of mine was house broken into and it took three or four days she came to the office called and I was right there at the car so how long I mean how can we make this service a better service I mean you know in order for the residents to reach out to you all as well as you know communication

So if they call through, we do have a call center still through the 5650 number. We do have agents that take calls every day. But depending on the number of calls that come through, it could take longer for our agents to reach those people. So we do have a callback feature that's available. If they don't want to wait on old, they can indicate that they want to receive a callback. And as soon as an agent is available, they'll receive a callback. In most cases, Um, it's a 24 hour process through that. Um, I have seen it go above that. Like if it's a Friday, sometimes you're going to receive a call back on a Monday. Um, I have seen it in some cases go above that 24 hours, but I, other than a weekend, not counting a weekend. Um, but I don't think I've ever seen it go above like two days, hit that two day mark. When it comes to the ticketing system and our HCV support email, which is our general email, what happens is those tickets come into our ticketing system and they get assigned to whichever staff member is assigned. is addressing that type of action or that type of inquiry. I have seen it depends on the situation. In some cases, we can resolve it immediately. In other cases, it may need to be assigned to another staff member to address. And so sometimes it can take several days to a couple of weeks, even depending on how difficult the issue is.

Okay. Do we have any other questions, comments of CVR staff? Okay. Well, thank you all. Thank you very much.

This is exciting. It's 530. Hold on to your horses.

Okay.

In the order, we do have a question or comment from Commissioner Snyder.

Of course. Madam Chair, I don't want to go into the city attorney's force field of death. I know better by now, but I did want to talk about the soldiers home, but it wasn't on the calendar. It wasn't on the agenda. So I don't want to bring it up and have you be any more mad at me than you are for bringing up something that wasn't on the agenda. I wondered if we could have a short, brief conversation about that or not.

It's not recognized on the agenda. So if you would like to have that conversation privately with council, you're more than welcome to do so.

I would rather have it publicly, but maybe next month. Okay.

And we can consider that for next month's agenda. As far as an update. Okay. All right. Duly noted.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Snyder.

All right. Is there any other business, new business? Okay. Okay. There being none, can I get a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second.

All right. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. The ayes have it.