Aug 2 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Mary Beth Schneider The Indianapolis Star


Homeowners in some states, including Ohio, already are getting new furnaces and their houses insulated, thanks to federal stimulus dollars. But not in Indiana.

No homeowner here has received a penny from Indiana's $131 million share of federal weatherization funds.

The federal government has only "conditionally" awarded Indiana its funding -- meaning none of it, including nearly $53 million this year, can be put to use.

State and local weatherization officials cite three reasons:

First, Gov. Mitch Daniels' administration is sending a big chunk of the money through the politically active Indiana Builders Association, which has given more than $185,000 to his political campaigns since 2004.

Second, the administration has said only people who have applied for an existing assistance program can receive the funds.

Third, Indiana has decided to pay out less money per household than the federal program allows.

Daniels says he's frustrated with the delay and federal concerns about Indiana's program.

"We don't have a nickel, and we don't have an approval," he said. "It says a 'conditional approval.' It reminds me of 'conditional love': I'll love you if you'll totally change."

State officials say their intentions were to get the money out faster and to help out builders in the process, but that has ended up slowing them down instead.

But homeowners who are disqualified under Indiana's plan and some community action agencies question whether politics has been involved in Indiana's choices and say Daniels and the state have only themselves to blame for the delay.

Differences in plans

Gilbert Sperling, weatherization program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, would not comment on the reasons for the federal holdup.

But Sherry Seiwert, director of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, which oversees Indiana's weatherization programs, said the federal government is questioning both the state's choice of groups that administer the funds and the decision to give weatherization aid only to people currently on a list for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP.

That list includes families at 150 percent of the federal poverty level -- or about $33,000 for a family of four -- instead of the weatherization income limit of 200 percent -- about $44,000 for that same family -- set by Congress.

In addition, Indiana wants to spend an average of $5,000 per home rather than the $6,500 limit Congress set. Seiwert said that would allow the state to weatherize 24,000 homes by March 2011, instead of about 18,500 under the federal limit.

And instead of distributing all the money only through community action agencies -- which traditionally sign people up for weatherization assistance while subcontracting out the actual work -- Indiana wants to use other groups and businesses.

In fact, the state awarded the biggest portion of its funds for this year -- more than $20.7 million -- to the Indiana Builders Association.

Seiwert said the governor's office had no input on that choice and that the builders association was picked both to widen the pool of groups providing the services and to give jobs to struggling homebuilders.

Rick Wajda, chief executive officer for the association, said the state's awareness of troubles in the building industry, and not political contributions, accounted for the association's share of the weatherization pie.

"We got into this because we saw a unique opportunity not only to provide some energy assistance to Hoosiers in need, but also to help put our people back to work as well," Wajda said.

Daniels said the Department of Energy "is resisting because they want to cram all this money through the existing channels. Well, this is something like 10 to 15 times the amount of money that has ever gone through those channels. If you're worried about fraud and you're worried about waste, I'd be very nervous flooding 10 to 15 times the money through those channels."

Leaders of the community action agencies say the administration has gone too far.

"The reason Indiana's plan is one of the final few to be approved is that it radically changed how this program has been administered," said Todd Lare, executive director of the South Central Community Action Program in Bloomington, which was awarded about $900,000 instead of the $2.6 million it had sought. "We're behind the gun now."

They say handing off a complicated federal program to a trade association with almost no experience in administering such grants is asking for trouble.

According to the builders association's application, the only federal grant it has administered before was a $32,000 training grant in 2008.

And Lare wonders if politics influenced the decision.

"We have 30 years of experience in doing this," Lare said. "We have fiscal systems in place... For the state to turn over to a new provider, who has never administered these funds before, the largest chunk of Indiana's money seems questionable to me."

The community action leaders dispute that the builder association's involvement was needed to put builders back to work. Builders would benefit regardless of who administers the funds, because all the work is done by contractors.

The leaders think the state chose to limit the weatherization program to people already on the LIHEAP list in order to make it easier for the builders association and other groups that lack experience to verify income qualifications.

"It makes it easier for them to operate the program," said Ed Girardot, executive director of the Indiana Community Action Association. "There's a lot of risk if you weatherize the home of an ineligible person. You're supposed to pay the money back."

Steve Eads, a 55-year-old unemployed father raising his 5-year-old son alone, said he had hoped that the stimulus funds would speed weatherization for his century-old Bloomington home.

"I did not apply for LIHEAP because (family members) were paying my utility bills," Eads said. "And that is the glitch in the design of this program. It adds insult to injury. It just frustrates me. How broke do you have to be?"

Eads instead will have to wait for weatherization help through the state's much-smaller weatherization program. With about $9 million annually, that program generally has long waiting lists.

Lare doesn't think that's fair.

"I think it's tragic that some folks who wouldn't have applied for (heating assistance) because they didn't know about it or didn't need energy assistance this past winter are now not going to qualify," he said.

"I think that's the travesty. What about somebody who's heard about (the weatherization program) on the news and comes to us and wants to sign up? What is our message? No? You're out of luck?"

Seiwert said that with about 55,000 homeowners already on the LIHEAP list, the state has far more people already than it can help. But, she said, none of them will be getting weatherization assistance until the federal government clears the way.

"When did we need to know this is no longer conditional? Yesterday," she said. "We're ready to go today."

Star reporter Bill Ruthhart contributed to this story.

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