New Mexico Rent Assistance Program Marketing Budget So Far Exceeds Assistance | Local News
The New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration has so far set aside more money for marketing an emergency rent assistance program than it has distributed to people in need, according to a report presented to the Legislative Finance Committee on Friday.
“Funding for housing assistance has just been pretty slow to roll out,” Micaela Fischer, program evaluation manager for the committee, told the bipartisan group of lawmakers.
“DFA told us that they were just starting to distribute their $284 million funding this month,” she said. “They awarded just under $400,000, or a tenth of 1%. It’s not a lot.”
Fischer also told lawmakers that the department set up a pair of “very large non-tender real markets” totaling about $5.4 million with Real Time Solutions to conduct a marketing and awareness campaign, a decision which, according to her, “raises our eyebrows”.
“Just for contrast, we heard from Doña Ana County over the past two days that they have distributed approximately $1.1 million of their $16.5 million in rental assistance, and that they don’t ‘ve only spent $147,000 on media, so they proportionally split more aid [and] spent less on marketing,” she said.
Henry Valdez, a spokesperson for the department, acknowledged that the program got off to a slow start.
“When we opened the doors, we had a lot of applicants, and we had a lot of people who had incomplete applications,” he said, adding that the agency tries to pay landlords directly according to guidelines. federal.
“Once we were able to contact these people, get the right paperwork, and get the owner’s W-9, we were able to start withdrawing money,” he said.
As of Friday afternoon, the state, which has partnered with the city of Albuquerque, had provided approximately $1.3 million in emergency rental assistance to 489 households across New Mexico, including nearly $110,000 in Santa Fe, Valdez said. The state plans to provide an additional $1.6 million to $1.8 million by the end of next week, he added.
Valdez also defended the no-tender contracts with Real Time Solutions. The company, which has offices in Albuquerque, processed the state’s vaccine registration application, which Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said helped New Mexico lead the country in vaccination rates. He also helped market the state’s 2020 Census awareness campaign.
“These agreements reflect the timeframe we have to get help out there and help New Mexicans who are experiencing financial hardship with housing due to COVID-19,” Valdez wrote in an email.
“DFA manages the processing and provides the federal compliance aspect of the program,” he wrote. “At the same time, the Ministry of Tourism and its trusted suppliers manage [the program’s] marketing as they have had great success with the deployment of the vaccine and could undertake a program of this size in an emergency.
According to a report to the Legislative Finance Committee, the department determined that the contracts did not need to be competitive because the procurement code does not apply to “purchases of advertising in all media, including including radio, television, print and electronic media. .”
The first contract can reach 1.77 million dollars. He asks the company to design and produce creative materials and develop an advertising plan to reach the greatest number of people in need of rental assistance, among other tasks.
The other contract is for a maximum of $3.61 million.
He asks the company to conduct a statewide marketing and awareness campaign with a team of marketing, communications, outreach and media experts.
In an interview, Valdez said that the smallest deal is basically design and content creation, and the biggest deal is paying for the advertising itself.
Valdez said the state did not issue the company a check for the total of the two contracts.
“It’s a work-against number, so while they’re doing the marketing, they’re billing us and we’re deducting that,” he said. “It’s the swimming pool [of money] It’s available.
Valdez also said the initial investment in a marketing and awareness campaign will pay off in the long run.
“Whether it’s helping out with rentals or selling t-shirts, you make this big launch [and] you spend a lot of money on marketing and from there you can go back because you don’t need that much,” he said.
According to its website, Real Time Solutions “is a leading web software company.”
CEO Steve Schroeder said the company is on the statewide Department of General Services pricing agreement and the so-called GSA schedule, two procurement vehicles that allow the government to more easily purchase products and services from commercial enterprises.
Schroeder said there was nothing he could do about raised eyebrows that his company received two no-tender contracts from the state.
“But when you say ‘contract without tender’, that implies that he did not follow the procurement procedure; it is wrong,” he said. “Every four years we respond to an incredibly difficult and time-consuming request. [request for proposals], and we are very fortunate to have secured a statewide price agreement. »
