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CRHA appoints Glenn-Matthews as interim director

The Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority has appointed an interim director rather than continue with a three-person leadership team.

The board of commissioners voted Monday to appoint Kathleen Glenn-Matthews to lead the agency.

Former Executive Director Grant Duffield, who was hired in May 2016, left Nov. 22 to take a job in Newport News.

Glenn-Matthews, whose title is interim operations director, was serving on a management team with Housing Director Claudette Green and former Mayor Dave Norris, who is CRHA’s redevelopment coordinator.

Glenn-Matthews joined CRHA in June 2019 as the relocation coordinator and also took over as interim operations director in November. She missed Monday’s meeting due to illness.

CRHA is a quasi-governmental agency that is not directly overseen by the city of Charlottesville. It receives funding from federal, state and local sources and manages the city’s public housing stock.

Board chairwoman Betsy Roettger said that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials told CRHA that having one person in charge was a better idea.

“They were still very uneasy with our three-person leadership strategy,” she said.

Charlottesville Human Resources will post the listing for a permanent director and will collect applications. City Manager Tarron Richardson and Human Resources Director Michele Vineyard emphasized that the city will only be collecting applications, not screening them.

Once the job description is finalized, it will be posted on the city’s website.

The board last month backed the idea of forming a committee to craft the job description and lead the search.

Brandon Collins, lead organizer with the Public Housing Association of Residents, advocated for the resident group to have two seats on any committee focused on the executive director search. He asked the board to ensure resident engagement in the process.

The board also authorized a 10% bonus on Glenn-Matthews’ salary for Nov. 23 to Feb. 1 and a 25% bonus for her time as interim executive director. Roettger didn’t have Glenn-Matthews’ exact salary during the meeting.

Norris and Green also will receive a 10% bonus for their time on the management team. Norris’ salary is $85,000. Green’s was not available on Monday.

Duffield was CRHA’s seventh executive director since 1998, with each lasting three or four years in the role.

The new executive director would hire a finance manager, who Glenn-Matthews has said could improve several of the agency’s deficiencies identified in a fall audit by the Office of Inspector General at HUD.

The report alleges that the authority violated internal, state and federal procurement regulations on purchases of $728,516 of products and services. HUD couldn’t determine if the services examined were obtained at a “fair and reasonable price” because CRHA couldn’t provide documents to prove it.

CRHA officials have worked with HUD to provide the documentation since the report was released in August. They have noted that staff shortages may have allowed certain documents to fall through the cracks, and having someone dedicated to collecting such information could improve shortfalls.

Source: www.dailyprogress.com

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