11 - Waiver of a portion of the Paris Housing Authority 2023 PILOT

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No. 11 Memorandum TO: Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem & City Council FROM: Grayson Path, City Manager SUBJECT: Waiver of a portion of the Paris Housing Authority 2023 PILOT DATE: February 26, 2024 BACKGROUND: On March 7, 1950, the City of Paris and the Paris Housing Authority (PHA) entered in to an agreement that in essence created the PHA within the City. In short, the PHA agreed to provide the services they do, and the City would fulfill initial roles in the agreement to make them successful. Those initial roles by the City have all been fulfilled, but our continued goal is their success on behalf of our residents who are income -eligible to live in these facilities. A term of the agreement is the PHA would issue a "Payment In Lieu of Taxes" (PILOT) in the place of property tax. This is calculated by formula from HUD. Some years the City receives a payment, some years we do not. We have seen the PILOT range from $0 to $10k each year. Again, the purpose of a PILOT vs. standard property tax is to decrease their cost so that they can divert more Federal Funds to assisting residents with low cost living arrangements, while still providing some compensation to the city for basic services we provide these residents (like all other city residents) such as Streets, Parks, Recreation, Police, Fire, EMS, etc. The PISD, County and PJC all receive a PILOT through the City proportionate to each entity's tax levies. In August 2021, the City initiated a project to convert the PHA's Booker T Washington and George Wright locations to 911 -based addressing. Prior to this, both sites had non -conforming addressing unique and specific to their sites which created conflicts for our first responders. Working with the Arkansas -Texas Council of Governments (ATCOG) who manages our 911 -addressing, as well as the PHA management, we were successful in updating their addressing. When seconds matter in an emergency, this change allowed for much faster responses. It also had the secondary added benefit of assisting residents with deliveries. The PHA set out to perform the physical changes needed to conform to the new 911 -addressing, mainly new signage. They completed some of this in 2022.