About 90 percent of the $2.8 million in federal funds the City Council voted to reappropriate on Monday will be spent on the Front Door Pride program, said Tom Barnett, executive director of the Department of Metropolitan Development.
The money is from Community Development Block Grant appropriations that were not spent in previous years.
Barnett said some of the appropriations date as far back as 2005. The reappropriation includes three different line items for grants and subsidies totaling $1.59 million. There also is $500,000 budgeted for razing and $100,000 for trash and debris services.
Councilman Jeff Kniese, R-1st Ward, asked Barnett why money allocated for the Front Door Pride program in previous years had not been spent. Barnett said there are several reasons, "some are really good. Some are not."
Some of the funds were allocated to partner organizations that didn't complete projects, Barnett said. Also, a program that offered nonmatching, $5,000 grants to homeowners in the Front Door Pride area for exterior improvements took more time to execute than anticipated because of federal regulations.
Barnett said his goals for the Front Door Pride program this year are to build between 10 and 20 homes and rehabilitate up to 10 homes. The Front Door Pride area is bounded by the Lloyd Expressway to the north, U.S. 41 to the east, Veterans Memorial Parkway to the south and Cherry Street to the west.
When money is appropriated for neighborhood revitalization projects, the city should follow through, Kniese said.
"I just hope you can understand my concern," Kniese told Barnett.
Barnett said the money that hasn't been spent in previous years is significant.
"I'm not saying it's fine," he said. "We need to do a better job."
Barnett took over for the late Gregg LaMar last March. Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel launched the Front Door Pride program in summer 2004. Weinzapfel has said that LaMar's death set the program back at least a year.
While the majority of the reappropriation will be spent on the Front Door Pride program, some funds will be spent in the Jacobsville neighborhood and for a Habitat for Humanity project.
Barnett said the city may buy "a number of homes that might be in need of demolition" in the Jacobsville area.
"It won't be on the same order as Front Door Pride," he said.
In other business, the council:
Approved a resolution on spending federal economic recovery funds. The resolution says the spending "should, to every extent possible, include a commitment from the city of Evansville to buy materials, goods and services that are produced by local companies within the state of Indiana or within the United States, thus employing the very workers who are subsidizing the economic recovery plan in the first place."