{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-aloha-waste/", "Aloha to Waste", "2016-09-26", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee, released the latest edition of \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.\n\nIn today\u2019s Report, Dr. Paul highlights nearly $10 million in taxpayer funds that the City of Honolulu wasted to beat a \u201ctimeliness\u201d deadline and stay eligible for more Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds. After searching for a project, the City settled on a grant proposal to purchase the Hibiscus Hill Apartments property, which wasn\u2019t up for sale at the time and eventually cost taxpayers about $1.9 million above the appraised value.\n\nThe Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee has established an email address, Report_Waste@HAGAC.Senate.gov, where federal employees can report wasteful end-of-year spending. More information can be found HERE.\n\nYou can find \u2018The Waste Report\u2019 HERE or below.\n\n***\n\nAccording to the Inspector General (IG) for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City and County of Honolulu (City) wasted nearly $10 million of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money for no other reason than to just spend federal money fast\u2026 so they could remain eligible to receive more federal funds.[1]\n\nThe CDBG program is a grant for local governments to help develop affordable housing and economic opportunities primarily for low- and middle-income persons. While grant money can be rolled into the next fiscal year, local governments are not allowed to just sit on this money. By the end of a grant year, available funds cannot exceed 150% of the current year grant award \u2013 the timeliness test. If a community breaks this timeliness test two years in a row, they may lose CDBG funding for the next year.[2]\n\nAccording to the IG, Honolulu\u2019s bureaucratic structure led it to perennially fail the timeliness test every other year. However, in 2013, the City was in risk of breaching the two-year rule and possibly losing CDBG money \u2013 until it cooked up a plan to fast track some big spending.\n\nFirst, the City came up with an alternate process for approving CDBG projects, which, according to the IG, \u201chad few requirements and was subjective.\u201d[3] Then, the City put out a \u201cbrief\u201d request for proposals for an acquisition project: high cost in one transaction. They further required the project to move fast \u2013 fast enough to prevent the two-year rule from being violated. Ultimately, the City approved a proposal to purchase the Hibiscus Hill Apartments in Waipahu.[4]\n\nHibiscus Hill was not even up for sale, which of course put the owner in a \u201cname your price\u201d kind of situation. The property ended up selling for about 25% above the appraised value \u2013 meaning taxpayers overpaid by about $1.9 million.[5]\n\nWhy Hibiscus Hill? Good question. The original proposal stated that rent at Hibiscus Hill had increased 40% over the preceding 3 years, but that claim was not substantiated. However, the appraiser found rents at the apartment complex were at the lower end of the local rental market. Further, since the property acquisition, rents have increased, in some cases \u201csignificantly.\u201d[6] This led the IG to conclude, \u201cTherefore, the acquisition apparently did not serve a meaningful purpose and the City did not support that it was necessary.\u201d[7] True, unless the City\u2019s real purpose was just to spend money quickly to preserve their access to CDBG grant dollars.\n\nThe grant recipients\u2019 proposal included a promise to spend $1 million (of their money) renovating all 80 units in the complex. Yet, two years later, only eight units were renovated at a cost of just over $146k. Further, 50 units were to be deemed \u201caffordable,\u201d a promise which the City itself decided in 2015 was unmet.[8]\n\nNonetheless, Honolulu did not breach the timeliness test two years running and is still eligible to receive CDBG money\u2026\n\nAnd the taxpayer is only out $10 million.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T21:01:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-aloha-waste/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6040869522839785, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}