I love it when a plan comes together

Most people reading this would probably agree that the government spends too much money on the wrong people. I say this because, to some extent, I think it is true as well. But that doesn’t mean that we just throw our hands in the air and give up, it means we do our best to track where every nickel is going! Demand as much transparency as you can.

I’m not going to tell you horror stories about wasteful spending in the Weatherization Program (WX); I’m going to tell you about something good. I have seen a few things in the last two years of monitoring the work that “got my hackles up”, but honestly way less than I expected. The main thing that continued to bother me was duct sealing…or lack thereof.

Halfway through the two year contract the government looked at every agency’s first year of spending. If they had spent too much, their budget was cut for the second year. Sounds fair enough to me! This kept those that were spending correctly from being punished. But when the budgets were lowered, so was the amount of work being done; the consumer (client) was really the one being punished. But in my mind this was supposed to be an air sealing program, so maybe we were finally getting back…to where we should have started from.

But one of the first measures dropped when funds were short was duct sealing. This went against everything I had been previously taught because technically a hole in the duct is a hole in the home! The inside of the ductwork is the inside of your home! I complained to the workers; I complained to the coordinators; and I complained to the government! Nothing happened because the priority list (the order in which work was to be completed) had air sealing as #1 and duct sealing way below…I don’t even remember the number. But they are one in the same!

Well the good news is twofold. First of all there was money left over at the end of the two year period. There will be a six month extension using the remaining funds and 1500-2000 more Georgia homes will be weatherized. But the great news is that there is a new priority list for the extension and at the top of the list sits…DUCT SEALING! I won’t pretend that I made this happen, but I’m glad it did. To quote Hannibal Smith of the A-Team “I love it when a plan comes together.”