Whether the Warsaw Housing Authority is a city department or not must be decided before the start of the next fiscal year.

The WHA is not officially recognized as a city department, but the mayor appoints the members of its board of commissioners, and the agency's board minutes, budgets and annual reports are filed with the city's clerk-treasurer.

WHA Executive Director Catharine Walker said Monday the Department of Housing and Urban Development is mandating that the agency either be recognized as a city department or reorganized as its own entity prior to the start of its next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Walker said the matter became a problem when she tried to get a tax identification number to make purchases for the office.

The members of the board asked Walker to set up a meeting with a HUD representative, the mayor, the board president and the city attorney so that the matter can be resolved. Walker said she believes that the agency was at one time a city department and a resolution is supposedly on file with the city, but no one has been able to make that determination or locate the resolution.

In other business, Walker told the board that she is dissatisfied with the current banking situation for the agency's accounts.

The housing authority has several accounts with National City Bank, which are apparently incorrectly accruing monthly service charges. The fees have been assessed to the WHA accounts since September and, in one case, are eating away the account, Walker said.

Walker said she has repeatedly tried to get the accounts straightened out and that the services charges were supposed to have been added back in, but that has not yet occurred.

"I believe they are very understaffed and overworked," Walker said about the bank, "but that's just my opinion." She added that the problems are not with the local people, but seem to be in Ohio, "where they can't seem to get their stuff together."

If the problems with the accounts cannot be worked out in a timely manner, the board agreed, it will be time to move the accounts to another financial institution. The matter will be reviewed again at the next meeting.

The board also is looking into discontinuing the security deposit loan program. The program was established a couple years ago when HUD began requiring housing authority clients to pay their own security deposit for rental units. However, Walker said, most clients are aware that a security deposit is required before they join the program and there has been little need to loan funds for the deposits.

The board told Walker to freeze the program for six months and, if no requests for loans are made, then the program can be closed out.

The next WHA board meeting is at 5:15 p.m. April 26 in the WHA offices on South Buffalo Street. [[In-content Ad]]