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Congressman Loebsack urges streamlining of Jumpstart Business Program |
| Updated: June 28, 2010 |
Congressman Loebsack sent the following letter to HUD Secretary Donovan urging him to work with the state to streamline the documentation requirements for the Jumpstart Business programs. The text of this letter is included below. Congressman Loebsack made remarks commemorating the 2nd Anniversary of the Floods of 2008 on the floor of the House. There is a link to the video at the end if you are interested.
TEXT OF LETTER TO SECRETARY DONOVAN
June 15, 2010
The Honorable Shaun Donovan
Secretary
US Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20410
Dear Secretary Donovan,
I want to thank you for your past work with my office to ensure the State of Iowa has the resources needed to start on the road to recovery from the devastating Floods of 2008. We have helped to deliver nearly $800 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) assistance to Iowa for disaster relief purposes.
Unfortunately, almost exactly two years after the worst flooding hit our state, many businesses are still struggling to recover and have yet to receive financial assistance from the programs designed using CDBG funds administered through the state’s Jumpstart Iowa initiative and the Iowa Department of Economic Development. With the second anniversary of the Floods of 2008, it is my hope that we can continue to work together to streamline the process for these programs to serve their intended purpose.
It has been brought to my attention from a number of my constituents that there continue to be revised requirements for documentation and continued questions as to what type of documentation is needed to process applications for assistance from the Jumpstart Iowa Business programs. While I understand there are important pieces of information needed to ensure a transparent and responsible use of taxpayer funds, surely there are requirements that can be streamlined to make this process more timely and efficient and eliminate duplicative information required when applying for multiple assistance programs.
We have worked in the past to improve the efficiency of these CDBG recovery programs and in fact you commented when you last visited Iowa that we should serve as a model for the rest of the country. I hope we can continue this partnership and ensure the Jumpstart Iowa business assistance programs work as intended.
Enclosed you will find correspondence with my office in regard to the issues I referenced in addition to a document highlighting a number of concerns with specific program documentation requirements. I hope you will take these concerns in to account and use any authority you have to streamline the application process for these programs. Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Dave Loebsack
Iowa’s Second District
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