October 28, 2020 - A five-year strategy for economic development in the Deep East Texas region was approved during the October Board Meeting of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments and Economic Development District. The 2020-2025 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) analyzes the region’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and provides a vision and goals for the future. It includes a strategy to increase the economic resilience of the region.
“DETCOG is a federally designated Economic Development District under the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA),” explained Bob Bashaw, regional planner. “One of our obligations to EDA is to update our CEDS every five years. This process has taken many months to complete, but it’s a valuable process than benefits our region and helps us qualify for investments from EDA and other state and federal agencies.”
The 2020-25 CEDS can be found on the DETCOG website at www.detcog.gov.
The DETCOG Board also approved the agency’s quarterly financial report during its October 22 meeting. The report summarized the final quarter of fiscal year and provided preliminary numbers for the end of the fiscal year. Executive Director Lonnie Hunt noted that the report is not final, and it typically takes about two months to complete end of year adjustments, but the numbers were positive.
“The Indirect Cost Pool, which represents the Administration, Finance and IT Departments at DETCOG, finished the year about $100,000 under budget,” Hunt said. “The Space Cost Pool,which funds the facilities and related expenses, is about $78,000 under budget.” He said the various grant programs also performed well during the year, with several of them receiving additional grant funds that were not anticipated at the beginning of the year.
“Our cash balances ebb and flow during the normal course of operations,” he added, “but it’s always good to have more money in the bank. On September 30th, our total bank balance was about a million dollars more than a year ago. Most of this increase is in restricted grant funds, but our balance in the local unrestricted fund was abou $90,000 more than a year ago.”
In other business at its’s October meeting, the DETCOG Board:
- Recognized Jeff Reed, Director of the Family and Youth Success (FAYS) program, on receiving the Outstanding Leader Award from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ Prevention and Early Intervention Program.
- Approved financial policies and procedures for Federal Grant Contracts.
- Approved a citizens complaint procedure for the Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) program.
- Approved revised bylaws and procedures for the Criminal Justice Advisory Committee.
- Approved a revised Risk Informed Methodology which provides policies for grant review and scoring by the Homeland Security Advisory Committee.
DETCOG’s next board of director’s meeting is scheduled for Nov. 24, 2020 at 1pm online. It will be held on a Tuesday as opposed to a Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
