The Ville Platte Housing Authority Board assembled for its quarterly meeting on Thursday and spent majority of the time discussing its police contract with the Ville Platte Police Department and the possibility of assisting developers wishing to provide affordable housing for individuals 55 years of age or older.
During the discussion about the police contract, it was revealed that Ville Platte Assistant Chief of Police Chip Matte, who serves as the Administrative Liaison Officer for this program, may have been paid by the housing authority for services that were not provided.
The contract between the two entities allows officers with the VPPD to patrol the housing authority complexes while they are off-duty. Those officers are then paid by the housing authority for providing security.
As the administrative liaison officer, Matte was tasked with coordination and supervision of the services required by the contract. In addition, the assistant chief was also responsible for processing of police and security reports; initiating and monitoring ongoing lines of communication with resident leaders; and coordinating security workshops and training seminars for residents.
In a report to the executive director of the VP Housing Authority and its board, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor stated that “from January 2017 to December 2017, the housing authority paid Assistant Chief Matte $9,600 ($400 bi-monthly) as required by its security services contract with the city.”
The report then went on to state, “There was no documentation, such as detailed time sheets, to show what services Assistant Chief Matte performed during this period.” Within that same period, the report stated that security detail was provided to the housing authority a total 16 times and resulted in the payment of $1,568 to the officers who patrolled.
According to the report, the legislative auditors found that “Matte did not perform all of the other responsibilities required of the Administrative Liaison Officer, such as initiating and monitoring ongoing lines of communication with resident leaders and coordinating security workshops and training seminars for residents.”
During the meeting on Thursday, the board was suppose to decide whether or not they would continue the contract it has with the VPPD, but it instead decided to table the discussion until Chief of Police Neal Lartigue could address the board in relation to this matter.
Suggested remedies from the auditors for this problem included allowing the city to pay officers who patrol the housing authority while off duty. The city would then bill the housing authority for the officers’ pay.
This option was one that the board said they would be okay with as long as the housing authority is able to sign off on the time sheets before they are submitted to city hall.
During the discussion of the police contract, an update was also given on action taken by the board in March to increase the hourly pay for off-duty officers who patrol the housing complexes.
Previous to the March meeting, officers earned $15 an hour from the housing authority. That was increased to $20 an hour due to the fact that officers weren’t signing up to patrol the housing authority because they could make more money working overtime for the police department.
According to Executive Director Grant Soileau, “since the pay has gone up, officers have been signing up to work.” Soileau then shared that officers also have already signed up to patrol for the Memorial Day weekend.
The board then heard from Len Reeves, who is a developer looking into building affordable housing in Ville Platte.
According to Reeves, if their grant application is approved to build these homes, they would build the affordable housing on seven acres of land located on Tom Drive and Tate Cove Road.
The homes would be four-plex single story units which would have hardy board and brick siding. Reeves said, “It is very high quality housing.”
As a part of the grant application process for this project, Reeves said the Housing Corporation “encouraged developers to partner with some type of housing authority to provide some type of rental assistance through the housing authority.”
Reeves then explained that what he would like to do is “provide the source of rental assistance through the housing authority and then the housing authority would be paid a processing fee for providing subsidies to our residents.”
The processing fee would be a percentage of the development cost, which Reeves said would be around $6 million.
In total, the developer said that the housing authority stands to earn around $50,000 over a period of time if they choose to partner with Reeves.
At the meeting, the board decided that if feasible, they would move toward contracting with Reeves contingent upon their review of the program details.
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ELIZABETH WEST