County Plans to Reapply for CDBG Grant for Water Line Extension

The county plans to reapply for a Community Development Block Grant for water line extension to a certain area of the county in need.
The DeKalb County Commission last fall adopted a resolution to apply for a $525,000 Community Development Block Grant for this purpose on behalf of the DeKalb Utility District.
Had it been approved by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, the grant would have funded the extension of water lines to Tramel Branch, Oakley Road, Carter Lane, Old Givens Hollow, and Dismal to Alexandria Road.
The maximum amount of the grant was $525,000. Had it been approved the DUD would have funded the local matching portion of 16% or $96,000.
This was the county’s second try for the grant involving the same project.
As with the first application filed earlier in 2014, the project was denied because it did not score high enough to be awarded a grant.
During last week’s county commission meeting, County Mayor Tim Stribling said discussions are underway to try again. “I met with Jon Foutch of DUD and Amanda Mainord, who wrote the grant, and we called Brooxie Carlton, the Director of the Department of Economic and Community Development. We had five more low to moderate income families added this year but our project impact score (for the grant) was lower. She (Carlton) said one way it might help would be that we get the cost per person down. By doing that DUD might could put in more money and ask for less money on the grant. That is something they (DUD) will discuss in a meeting to maybe put in more money on their end of it and lower the grant amount we’re asking for to try and get the cost per person down. There will need to be a public hearing before we pass a resolution to let people know that we will be applying for a grant again for those water lines at Tramel Branch, Oakley Road, Carter Lane, Old Givens Hollow, and Dismal to Alexandria Road,” said Stribling.
“She (Carlton) recommended last year (in applying for the grant) that we do 35% well testing instead of the standard 10%. We did that. We raised our score from 191 to 206 but they (state) raised the cut off (score) from 193 to 216,” Stribling added.
The state approved water line extension grants this year for seven applicants including Monroe County, Greene County, Hancock County, Jefferson County, Maynardville, Macon County, and Anderson County totaling $3,456,001.
Applicants who were denied a grant included DeKalb County, Bedford County, McMinn County, Coffee County, Hickman County, Unicoi County, and the Pittman Center.
The total amount of funding requested among all fourteen applicants was $6,628,001