County aviation officials are scrambling to complete paperwork on millions of dollars worth of federal grants after the Federal Aviation Administration threatened in writing to recover at least $12.76 million.
''It was a wake-up letter,'' said Susan Warner Dooley, the airport's chief financial officer. ```Come on folks, you need to move forward.'''
That warning -- which noted that required receipts for some grant spending were far overdue -- came in May. Since then, county officials say they have met several times with FAA officials to resolve the matter. Both sides are adamant that the airport's grant status is no longer in jeopardy.
The county's aviation department has a variety of federal construction and security grants totaling $63 million. Local officials have approximately two to four years to spend each of the grants, and another two to three months after that to file the FAA's ''close-out'' paperwork -- summaries of invoices from contractors and other information about how the money was spent.
Margaret Elaine Chamorro, chief of grants at the airport, has been reassigned in her division. Officials said there have been issues with her performance but the move had nothing to do with the record-keeping delays.
Chamorro said she came to the newly created position in January 2004 ''with no training whatsoever.'' During the post-Sept. 11 period, she inherited some unexpected situations, including some security project delays. Chamorro said grants can't be closed until projects are completed.
''I had a manager who was overseeing all of this,'' she said. ``When I came in, some of the grants were almost 4 years old. You can only do what you can do at that point.''
Airport officials found out there was a problem when they received a sharply worded letter from Ilia A. Quinones, an FAA program manager in Orlando. Quinones ''found an apparent lack of understanding'' of the reporting requirements and complained that in the last year her inquiries had gone unanswered.
ONE GRANT CLOSED
In particular, she was concerned with all of the security-related projects. Miami's aviation department received more than $36 million in federal money between 2000 and 2004 and more was proposed for this year. Last fiscal year only one security grant worth $5.8 million was closed, she said -- a grant that was almost 4 years old and about to be terminated.
Quinones threatened that if another grant worth $12.76 million wasn't closed by the July deadline, there could be consequences.
''This could mean a unilateral termination by the FAA, and the recovery of these funds, if so required,'' she wrote.
She continued that federal officials had ''a serious concern'' about awarding the airport a 2005 grant for $1.46 million for a proposed ''Concourse J Security Access Control Project.'' The application, she said, was incomplete.
`VERY SATISFIED'
Since then, county officials say, they have been working hard to resolve the situation and have closed a number of grants. Rusty Chapman, manager of the airports division for the Southern Region of the FAA, said they are ''very satisfied'' with the progress. So satisfied that in June, July and August, county officials said the FAA awarded Miami three more grants totaling $18.4 million.
In a very different August e-mail to Chamorro, Quinones also seemed pleased with the progress.
''I appreciate all your efforts in what has been a very difficult and serious undertaking,'' Quinones wrote. ``Hopefully, these updates will not just be for the FAA's benefit -- rather they will benefit all parties involved.''
Then she asked for a revised schedule of close-outs for fiscal 2006.
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