The Butler County commissioners are challenging a finding from the state Department of Community and Economic Development calling for the county to reprogram $99,000 in block grant money spent several years ago on repairs to low- to moderate-income residents’ homes.

The commissioners received a repayment agreement April 30 from the DCED. Solicitor Julie Graham found an error in the agreement, which the DCED acknowledged. The county is now waiting for the DCED to send a revised version of the agreement, officials said at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting.

Commissioners are working with the DCED to challenge the finding, said Leslie Osche, commissioner’s chairperson.

“Investments in housing, particularly housing improvements, are important as is pointed out by the governor’s statewide housing action plan. We’re trying to indicate that it’s important that those services were delivered and provided to the consumers, and those housing upgrades were made, so we’re challenging their efforts to recoup that money on a technicality,” Osche said.

The Butler County Housing and Redevelopment Authority completed home improvement work on homes of low- to moderate-income residents in the county through the Owner-Occupied Rehabilitation Program. The authority used Community Development Block Grant funds awarded to the county in 2018 or 2019, Ed Mauk, authority executive director, said Thursday.

Records about the home improvement work, and many other documents stored in the authority’s office, were destroyed or lost during a flood from a broken water pipe on New Year’s Eve of 2022. The record of an environmental review required for the home improvement work could not be found by the authority during an internal review conducted after the flood, Mauk said.

So, the authority recreated the review document, placed a memo explaining what had occurred in the file, and the commissioners approved it. However, the DCED flagged it because the date placed on the recreated environmental review was later than the date on the work contracts, Mauk said.

“We do a really good job of running these programs to help people that need help. The irony is we found it and corrected it. They don’t like how we corrected it,” Mauk said.

He said no issues or problems were found in the environmental review. The residents who received the home improvements met income and other guidelines, the completed work met program requirements and there have been no allegations of fraud, he said.

“In over 30 years, I’ve never seen something so trivial manifest itself in a repayment,” Mauk said.

If the DCED insists on reprogramming the money, the authority will have to pay the $99,000 to the county, which was the grant recipient, using internal money not connected to the state or federal governments, which provide grant money to the authority, he said. The county provided the block grant money to the authority for the rehabilitation program through a contract.

“Now, there goes $100,000 we don’t have to help people with housing in Butler County,” Mauk said. “That’s the frustrating part.”

The home improvement services were delivered so, “we don’t just sit back and accept it,” Osche said Wednesday.

She said the DCED wants the county to reprogram the money to another CDBG funded project, but timelines connected to those grant funds make reprogramming complicated. She said she hopes all the money won’t have to be reprogrammed.

The DCED did not reply to an email sent Thursday seeking comment.

Other CDBG-funded projects were also addressed at the commissioners’ meeting.

The commissioners reprogrammed $222,166, which was awarded to Summit Township for a stormwater project several years ago that never came to fruition, to Butler Township to help pay for its ongoing stormwater project. Osche said Summit Township returned the money to the county because it wasn’t spent in the allotted time.

A $67,400 contract for Slippery Rock’s storm sewer project was awarded to Robinson Pipe Cleaning of Pittsburgh, which submitted the lowest of three bids.