WEED AND SEED FUNDING RETURNED

Southeast Missouri Weed and Seed has its nearly $700,000 in federal grant money back.

After promises earlier this month that money had been restored for the neighborhood crime-fighting program, money is actually available now, said James Hillin, who serves as accountant for SEMO Weed and Seed."There is a drawdown procedure by phone, and they were finally able to draw funds last Friday," Hillin said.

The week of fresh funds allowed the Weed and Seed board to erase debts of more than $22,000 that had accumulated since the grant was suspended, Hillin said. The Southeast Missouri anti-crime initiative lost its federal funding from the U.S. Justice Department at the beginning of last t month. The national Weed and Seed office cited several lapses in regulations by SEMO Weed and Seed for suspending the grant, which it said would be restored when all discrepancies were corrected.

One of the most looming problems, using a federal employee as executive director, was cleared up Sept. 29 when Lisa Lane was hired to replace Calvin Bird, who resigned last Spring. The U.S. Attorney's office had announced restoration of funds at that point, but Hillin said it took some time based on bureaucratic reasons to make the money available again.

Ron Scaggs, who served as interim executive director, had sent a detailed 30-point list to Weed and Seed's national office responding to the lapses, which he described as mostly "government minutia."Auditors from the federal Office of the Comptroller took three days to go over SEMO Weed and Seed's spending. These auditors regularly look at programs within the Justice Department, said Stacy Larsen, who is program manager over several Midwestern states for Weed and Seed.

Restoration of funds was not contingent upon the auditors' work, Hillin said.

However, a report will be issued to the SEMO Weed and Seed regional board within 35 to 40 days disclosing the audit's findings, Hillin said. The report should include recommendations for the board to act on, he said.

SEMO Weed and Seed has received money to fight crime and support grassroots community improvement initiatives since December 1998. So far, the money has been used to pay for various community policing efforts, "mini-grants" for resident-initiated programs and administrative costs.

The suspension of funding has apparently not dampened desires to apply for mini-grants in all of the five target cities. At SEMO Weed and Seed's October board meeting, six applications for mini-grants totaling over $16,000 were offered from Caruthersville and Charleston. The three other cities that make up SEMO Weed and Seed, Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff and Sikeston, did not have any applicants.

As a national program, Weed and Seed began in 1991. It started with three sites in Trenton, N.J., Omaha, Neb., and Kansas City. Now, there are over 200 sites receiving funding.

SEMO Weed and Seed is not the first site to have its funding withheld, said Adam Spector, a spokesman for the Justice Department.