George Holding: “I want to first off thank my good friend from Iowa, Chairman Latham, for the hard work he has put into this bill. There…”

“I want to first off thank my good friend from Iowa, Chairman Latham, for the hard work he has put into this bill. There is a matter that I think we are going to have to do some more work on. The Federal Government, through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, each year allocates a significant amount of taxpayer dollars to public housing authorities to provide affordable and safe housing for those in need. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, some public housing authorities, executives of public housing authorities, are taking home excessively generous compensation packages each year, partly paid for with Federal dollars. One needs to look no further than the public housing authority in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Raleigh Housing Authority, to see an example of excessive compensation. Audits that I requested from both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Raleigh Housing Authority itself have brought to light this fundamental problem with compensation. When the executive director of the Raleigh Housing Authority manages a housing authority that ranks somewhere near 400th in terms of overall size but still receives a total compensation package, Mr. Chairman, that puts him in the top ten of all public housing authority directors in terms of salary and other benefits, it certainly raises some red flags to me.…”