Recovery grants forecast retracted

Oh, well, yeah. We DID expect something like this -- but so soon?

Recovery grants forecast retracted
ICF official backs off 500-a-day estimate
Thursday, January 11, 2007
By David Hammer

The much-maligned administrator of Louisiana's Road Home program is backing off a statement last month that it would hand out 500 grants a day to homeowners by the end of January.

In the 25 days since Road Home administrator Michael Byrne assured angry Louisiana Recovery Authority board members of the impending flow of housing aid, the program has averaged fewer than three closings a day.

ICF International, the company with a $756 million state contract to handle federal money -- including $7.5 billion in grants for homeowners -- came under fire late last year for errors and slowdowns. State legislators recommended firing the company.

ICFI in deeper doo-doo

Finally, someone in the media pays attention to ICF-- who runs it and how.

"They have always failed to understand the magnitude of this undertaking or commit the amount of resources they need to get the job done," said Sam Jones, deputy director of the Governor's Office of Community Programs.
. . . . . .
So far, however, the contract has been very good for ICF. After the company went public, it distributed $2.7 million in one-time bonuses to 30 of its top managers. Byrne said he was not one of the recipients, but he declined to reveal his salary or say what any other executives in charge of the Road Home contract are making.

"It is private information and we won't disclose that," ICF spokeswoman Gentry Brann said. "It wouldn't be fair to the employees."
. . . . . .
"We are ahead of what we said in our contract we would meet," Brann said.

Jones said ICF officials are making a "false argument."

"To meet their contractual obligations, there are benchmarks you have to meet and they were not meeting them," Jones said. "That's it. Our bells first went off when they weren't meeting even the earliest projections. We don't need to find out six months from now that they are going to fail to meet the contract expectations. We can't wait until then."

Uh huh.

Some ICF history. How they put this project together.

Here are key dates in the ICF contract.

All of these links are to ICF news releases:

January 2006 ICF hires Michael Byrne from FEMA and Homeland Security.

April 2006 ICF becomes ICF International.


June 29, 2006: ICFI, Michael Byrne hire former FBI agent Robert Blitzer, Deputy Assistant Secretray at Department of Health and Human Services. According to ICFI,

He also provided leadership and support for preparations and response to imminent threats to public health such as the U.S. Federal Government's response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) threat, as well as other public health emergencies, including the hurricanes that occurred in 2005 and 2006 in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.

June 30, 2006. ICFI announces $87 million preliminary contract for Road Home project. The award of the contract happened on June 12. They hire subcontractors
"Deltha Corporation,
First American Title Insurance Company,
Jones Walker,
KPMG International,
Microsoft,
Quadel Consulting,
Providence Engineering & Environmental Group, L.L.C.,
The Shaw Group, and
STR, L.L.C."

Michael Byrne states:

". . . we expect to double local hiring and team with an even greater number of local firms. We are honored to play such an important role in helping displaced residents rebuild their communities."

However, the press release ends with this curious legalese:

Words such as “will,” "expect,” and similar words or phrasing, identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

(In other words-- we sound like we're promising performance, but don't take that seriously. There's actually a whole paragraph which essentially says, don't hold us to any promises we make.)

October 23, 2006: ICFI moves to sell $49 million in stock.

ICF International (Nasdaq: ICFI) announced today that the underwriters of its initial public offering of shares of its common stock, which began trading on The Nasdaq Global Select Market on September 28, 2006, have fully exercised their overallotment option to purchase an additional 700,500 shares. All of the overallotment shares were sold by ICF. With the exercise of the underwriters’ option, the aggregate net proceeds to ICF of its offering were approximately US$48.7 million.

December 18, 2006: ICFI accentuates the positive.

ICF International Receives Expression of Support from the State of Louisiana

A somewhat misleading headline, since three days previously the legislature asked the Governor to fire ICFI.

More on ICF

In the post below there's a quote of a comment about Michael Byrne, who was hired by ICF in January 2006.(The contract was awarded in June.) Here's how ICF describes him in their press release.

"a Senior Director at The White House Office of Homeland Security, a key official and advisor to Secretary Ridge at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
. . . . . . . .
In 1999, Mr. Byrne joined the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in New York City and served as FEMA Operations Chief at Ground Zero in Manhattan. In 2001, he joined The White House Office of Homeland Security where he was responsible for guiding policy and initiatives for national homeland security efforts. In 2003, Mr. Byrne served as the first Director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office for National Capital Region Coordination. At DHS, he reported directly to Secretary Ridge and was responsible for regional preparedness, response, recovery, and information sharing."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
At ICF Consulting Mr. Byrne will lead a division of more than 200 professionals who provide advisory, technology, and implementation services for homeland and national security clients at the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, other federal agencies, and state and local governments throughout the country.

Did this White House connection have anything to do with their getting the contract? Did Byrne's FEMA experience guarantee a similar performance from ICF? I'll bet those questions won't be asked by your legislators in Louisiana.