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The Humboldt County government hasn’t had much in the way of positive fiscal news over the last couple years, but a key piece of it arrived Tuesday afternoon in a one-sentence email from the state’s Economic Development Division.

“Humboldt has been released from cash hold,” the message read.

The email, from EDD Regional Advisor Veronica Champayne-Bryant to officials in the county Economic Development Division, was referencing a restriction that the state placed on funding for the county’s workforce development programs back on March 4.

The constraint was just one of several repercussions stemming from the Auditor-Controller’s Office’s failure to meet fiscal reporting requirements, including the submittal of the county’s long-overdue 2019-20 Single Audit. The cash hold restricted the county from drawing down federal grant funds intended to reimburse the various community organizations that partner with the county on workforce development programs.

Economic Development Director Scott Adair was elated by the news that the hold had been lifted, and in a phone interview he said the state agency made the decision thanks to improved practices and communication from the Auditor-Controller’s Office, which is under new leadership after challenger Cheryl Dillingham defeated incumbent Karen Paz Dominguez in the June election.

Adair said that in conversations with EDD staff,  “they specifically credited the amount of fiscal progress we’ve made in just a short period time.”

The 2019-20 Single Audit, which was due this past September, still hasn’t been submitted to the state, but Adair said the state agency has been pleased by improved communication and other changes.

“The implementation of new practices and fiscal policies and procedures [and] a change of leadership at the Auditor-Controller’s Office has given [the EDD] some renewed confidence in the county’s ability to successfully manage our WIOA dollars,” Adair said, referring to grant funding from the federal Workforce Investment Opportunity Act.

Humboldt County Development Specialist Peggy Murphy agreed. “They’re very pleased with seeing the progress,” she said.

Adair said that since Dillingham took over, his department has been getting memos from the Auditor-Controller’s Office laying out “some real rigorous timelines” for when staff will submit various overdue reports, including both the 2019-20 single audit, which they expect to submit to the federal clearinghouse by the end of the month, and the 2020-21 single audit, which they expect to submit by the end of October. 

“They’re moving very quickly over there to try to get things done,” Adair said. “We’ve been sharing that information with the state, and previous to that we just didn’t have info to share with them because we weren’t getting it.”

Officials with the EDD appreciate the information. “Just the fact that they’re seeing communication — they’re seeing actual, tangible, written deadlines and dates coming from the AC’s office — they’re just feeling really good about it,” Adair said. 

The Outpost reached out to Champayne-Bryant for comment but had not yet heard back by the time this post was published.

The Humboldt County Workforce Coalition currently subcontracts with Cal Poly Humboldt to manage its programming, which includes employment and education services for local youth, help for dislocated workers, layoff aversion services and rapid assistance for the recently unemployed.

Connie Stewart, executive director of initiatives at Cal Poly Humboldt and one of the partners in the workforce coalition, said she and her colleagues are happy about the news. 

”We’re really excited because we can move forward now with the Humboldt Workforce Coalition,” she said. “The job market is open for business.”

Since the cash hold was implemented, the county and university have been picking up the tab to reimburse various partner agencies in the coalition, including nonprofits such as Dream Quest organization, the McKinleyville Family Resource Center and the Mattole Restoration Council. 

“None of us completely shut down service, but we had been living with anxiety” due to uncertainty about whether the state would ever reimburse for costs, Stewart said. “But now we really are open for business. We can tell people we have money.”

Adair and Stewart said the county’s overdue fiscal reporting also prevented the Humboldt Development Board from applying for valuable grants, including money to boost employment in the blue and green economies — burgeoning sectors such as renewable energy, fisheries and marine/coastal resources. (The World Bank says the “blue economy” is “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem.”)

“With the state budget, there were so many grants the Workforce Development Board couldn’t apply for without the cash hold being lifted,” Stewart said. “We’re gonna be competitive for those grants [going forward]. That’s the good news. … There’s just hundreds of millions of dollars for training programs coming, and with offshore wind development [off the Humboldt County coast] and other projects, we need a lot of those training dollars.”

Adair echoed that sentiment, saying the release of the cash hold “actually positions our organization, our agency and our community again to be eligible to apply for some of this other competitive grant funding, which is phenomenal given everything that’s occurring in the pipeline for development right now for the community.” He mentioned both the offshore wind development as well as the high-speed fiber optic line being installed along the ocean floor between Eureka and Singapore.

“For staff it also is just a huge psychological relief,” he added. “When we’re in a position when we’re under cash a cash hold, we’re essentially operating under a position where we are penalized because we’re not meeting programmatic service directives which we are required to comply with … . Having that cash hold released and no longer hanging over our heads is really going to be a motivator and a driver for generating some positive energy around the program again.”