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Based on “Policy Update”.

Policy update

The House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees for Agriculture released preliminary numbers for next fiscal year. Generally the House numbers are more conservative than those from the Senate, which requested $1.1 billion for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Section 502 Direct lending and $30 million for USDA Section 523 Mutual Self-Help Housing.

Policy update

I was in DC last week to talk with Congressional staff about the FY18 and FY19 budgets. It is a crazy time right now. Congress is trying to finish the FY18 continuing resolution, which will take us to this fiscal year end, and to figure out where to add the $60 billion in budget authority just approved in the last continuing resolution.

Policy Update

The National Rural Housing Coalition’s (NRHC) annual meeting was held during the last week of November. Anne Hazlett, assistant to the Rural Development secretary, attended the meeting to talk about issues related to rural housing programs. Most notable in her first presentation

Policy update

When RCAC received its new short-term contract with Rural Development, I reached out to tell all of you about the new requirement for a “Quality Control Assessment” (QCA). This is a new requirement in the contract and we wanted all of you to be aware of the new process before we started conducting the assessments in conjunction with quarterly meetings.

Policy update

The T&MA Contractors were asked to submit five month proposals to continue their work. These small contracts were then awarded without interruption, and Rural Development continues to work on the new solicitation. Essentially, this means we are still working on contract extensions and waiting on the new multi-year solicitation.