In the area of local program accountability, grantees do appear to welcome and
support the delegated responsibility that accompanies working as a grant recipient. Their
priority is reportedly that of satisfying HUD requirements first and foremost, as cities feel
very accountable to HUD in their program administration and implementation. One
remaining issue that the research did not evaluate was that of program benefits. Is this
program one in which federal and local units of government are working together, one
distributing funds to the other, without regard to the other parties involved or affected by
the funds? Future research will evaluate this question, but based upon reported
information, one must wonder if and/or how the grant system should consider the
application of benefits to individuals and families, and to what extent their perspective
should count towards evaluating the success of a program. The results of this study
indicate that grant administrators feel most accountable to HUD, followed by their local
policy makers, the elected officials, and to a much lesser extent, the citizens or clients
receiving grant benefits. The question of misplaced accountability is one to keep in mind
as the grant system continues to evolve.
The focus on accountability between the federal and local government sectors has
proven to be successful in the recent movement to strengthen measurements in order to
report program data. Cities are reporting that the performance requirements are not too
restrictive for local implementation efforts. In addition, in the case of CDBG, HUD has
been active and arguably proactive in helping cities implement their programs and
projects. The emphasis on collecting uniform data appears to be gaining momentum, as
cities most often reported a positive impact of HUD performance requirements on
measuring outputs and outcomes of the grant programs. The data that HUD should be
currently receiving from local entitlements should hopefully confirm this effort is
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Convention