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Show ' Plan Willi Wfina! Decisions To Local Gov. M1CKELSEN .1 - A state ;,.v released eventually 'entsinUtah .e final deci-;;.ets deci-;;.ets state and m ''is de-.; de-.; ., jf it can t :''ri system, to those who '.tie services ' -?iiy to influ- "'-rats." said Reed Searle, executive director direc-tor of the Department of Com-munity Com-munity and Economic Development. De-velopment. Speaking to members of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, he criticized the way grant proposals have been handled up until now. "THE OBJECTIVES are simply to design a program where local government officials offi-cials have substantially more influence and a significant role in the decision-.naking process about grants," he said. Not only would the officials nave the potential to make decisions de-cisions on the timing of grants but sayso over the eventual approval of the proposal and the allotment of grant dollars according to Mr. Searle. AT PRESENT, grant applications appli-cations are submitted by individual indi-vidual communities, he added, ''and federal agencies make the decisions." In some cases however, there has been some participation at the state level he said. Three months after taking his job with the state, Mr. Searle said he received a notice from the Farmer's Home Loan Bureau indicating that of 920 million allocated for 23 different states. Utah would receive only S72.000. HE SAID, "We all pay taxes and there's dollars available in our communities and state, and we should be getting our fair share of those dollars. Why didn't we?" "It was simply because Congress created a program requiring the federal agencies who allocated those dollars to receive from the local officials, who submit the applications, information that literally told the federal agencies how local governments in each state felt about the projects," Mr. Searle commented. "They (communities) had to literally develop a priority svstem about ab-out how the local officials felt about the grant applications." "THE STATE applied for planning money to try and develop de-velop that process," he added. The 23 other states had re- ceived almost one million dollars dol-lars each, according to Mr. Searle. TO COMBAT against the injustice, in-justice, he and several other department officials talked with representatives of those staies which received more money, to find out w hat means they had for reviewing the grant applications. "Every state told us the same thing." he said. They (states) "designed one." in two months, "concocted a system that met the requirements." require-ments." and then got their money. HE SAID Utah. too. "concocted "con-cocted a svstem." and received re-ceived this ear about S 1 .6 million. mil-lion. "We literally bastardized the system." he explained. "We did what the federal government gov-ernment needed, but it was totally tot-ally illegitimate." "IT WASN'T really a process pro-cess where any local official in the state really went through a process of doing what Congress Con-gress had told us to do. But we wanted that money," he said. The whole idea of the new system, according to Mr. Searle. and applauded bv Governor Gov-ernor Matheson. is to do away w ith the old "first come, first serve" basis for deciding who gets the grant money. Now rather, a set of government govern-ment representatives would be able to look in depth at the grant proposals and determine the important ones. ON THAT note, Searle met with some disacreement from the WFRC. Sandy Mayor W. Paul Thompson questioned how any governmental body could decide where the money would be allocated, without being unfair to some entity. Mr. Searle, however, further furth-er explained that the dollars should "be achieving the maximum max-imum political, economic benefit be-nefit possible." "IT'S DIFFICULT to judge, he said, "where the needs are the greatest and w hen a project is a good project." "It's never a waste," he added, to spend the grant money and then find that it could have been utilized elsewhere, else-where, but "in some cases, it's not the best use of limited resources." re-sources." FARMER'S HOME Loan has given the slate some money, and informed them in a contract, "to work with local officials to develop some kind of a sv stem." Mr. Searle told the group. The contract sav s local officials offi-cials should work together in a systematic way with regard to their grant applications, make decisions on the importance of the giv en grants, and the allotment allot-ment of monies. "ALL OF the regional com-missions com-missions in the United States." he said, "were instructed in-structed by the Department of Commerce to finance, either on an association of gov eminent em-inent basis, or on a county level, an effort whereby the local officials can design for them a process." Through this process, grant applications would be reviewed, re-viewed, accepted or denied, and recommended for funding approv al. UP UNTIL now, when a community has needed state aid. it has traditionally been in the form of a grant. The new system allows grant applicants fewer technical problems. These are the steps explained ex-plained by Mr. Searle: GRANT applicants would no longer have to develop a full-blown grant application. Applications would be submitted to a county grant review re-view board. WHEN grants are approved, they can be approved in batches, the review re-view committees deciding how to judge for acceptance. From the county board, the grant is sent on to a regional region-al review panel, w ho it turn develop de-velop finalizing ways to look at and deny or approve the proposal. prop-osal. "THE MOST important thing," he said, "is clearly the community's needs, and they (boards) should be the judges of that," The system should develop, according to Mr. Searle, in such a way, that the local officials are the judges of each other's grants. "There ought to be some natural basis developed," he added, "for local government officials to decide what is important im-portant to them and w hat is not important to them." AT THE conclusion of his hour-long explanation of the system, the bulk of the WFRC members were less than enthusiastic. enthu-siastic. It's rather naive to think that the federal government is going to turn over the whole decision-making process to the state," said Graham Shir- ra. of the state council of governments gov-ernments planning board. "IF. IN fact, the federal government gov-ernment said, and their directives direc-tives were, that we want to involve in-volve the states and the local governments, and that we're w illing to back off w ith some of our regulations and substitute therefore, their process, then that's one thing." he added. "But to s.iv that we're going to keep all of ours and we're going to add to it a process that's going to compound the time and the people involved, and the dollars for preparing applications, then that's another." The planning commission is concerned, he said, that "this svstem. while it may have elected officials on a policymaking policy-making bodv that w ould finally nuke the decisions on priorities priori-ties to send to the federal gov -eminent, we will be in a position posi-tion with state staffing, to direct growth management or direct growth policies. They feel it's another form of state growth management. They feel it could be used that way . Their concern is that it w ill not develop in that direction." "THE PRIORITIES are al-ways al-ways great to the larger cities." he added. "The smaller smal-ler jurisdictions nev er seem to rate on that sy stem, especially if there's a shortage of money." Mr. Senile's reactions were negative. Though aware that the technicalities of his proposal prop-osal are complex and will be difficult to work out with the elected officials, he is confident confi-dent that the plan can woik. "IT'S GOING to go one way or the other." he said, explaining explain-ing that if it isn't accepted, there is a good chance thai the state w ill get so much pressure from the federal government, that they will accept the plan anyway. If we don't do it. he said, "we're losing evert competition competi-tion for federal dollars we have." "1 DON'T like the fedeial dollars coming down." Mr. Searle told the council Thursday, Thurs-day, but "they have to go soniew here." WFRC Executive Duectoi Wilbur Jeftcnes summed up Mr. Senile's concerns best, say ing if the proposal isn't accepted, the fedeial money may go to another stale. THE WFRC asked for a spe- ' cial committee lo look at Senile's plan and report back to the council at a later meeting. |