TAMPA - Hillsborough County's affordable housing program might have to return an additional $800,000 in grant money, bringing to almost $3 million the amount of federal money the housing department has lost in the last month.

Howie Carroll, the county's affordable housing manager, stood mutely at the podium Wednesday while Commissioners Rose Ferlita and Kevin White criticized errors in his department that cost the county funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"That's almost $3 million that was to come to this county that's flown bye-bye and we won't get the opportunity to recover," White said.

Two weeks ago, Ferlita revealed HUD's decision to retract more than $2 million in affordable housing projects. The county violated HUD rules by entering projects into a computerized tracking system before signed agreements had been obtained from developers and nonprofit groups who build affordable housing.

On Wednesday, Ferlita said she had new information on an additional $826,511 that HUD was refusing to pay the county for apartments that were supposed to offer affordable rents for low-income tenants.

"It's not a time to be gambling with those dollars because one person at the top who's not doing his job," Ferlita said after the meeting.

Carroll left the meeting without comment.

Problems Predate Hiring

County Administrator Pat Bean defended Carroll, saying the errors that caused HUD to take back the $800,000 happened before Carroll started working for the county.

"Several years ago, decisions were made by somebody that caused us to be out of compliance," Bean said. She said she was not sure who was responsible.

The bad decisions were outlined in a Jan. 31 letter from HUD to the county and involved three apartment complexes called Rainbow Oasis Apartments. The federal agency said the apartments were supposed to maintain affordable rents until Feb. 20, 2011. Two of the complexes have been sold, however, a violation of HUD regulations because the "affordability period" has not ended.

The letter said a monitoring visit revealed some of the units were being rented for too much money, violating the rules for HUD's Home program.

Files on the complexes also did not contain proper documentation concerning rent and utility allowances for poor tenants, the letter from HUD said.

The mistakes that led to the $2 million loss started before Carroll came onboard, but they continued under his management.

Bean said Carroll was busy trying to learn a new system and didn't discover the housing projects had been entered in the computer without signed agreements from the developers.

"You can't just walk in and instantaneously say, 'You have a problem here,'" Bean said.

Before coming to the county, Carroll was assistant housing manager with the city of Clearwater. He received high marks from supervisors, one of whom said Carroll's relationship with HUD was "excellent."

"He is conscientious about deadlines and is a great steward of public funds," the supervisor wrote in Carroll's evaluation.

Audit Gets Go-Ahead

In other action Wednesday, the commission cleared TaxWatch, a government watchdog group, to audit Hillsborough County government operations and look for cost-saving opportunities.

The county commission approved a scope of work for the Tallahassee-based group that does not include looking for new revenue sources. TaxWatch officials say finding new ways for local governments to raise money is not part of their group's mission.

The study areas, agreed to by the county staff and TaxWatch, would include reducing overreliance on property taxes in favor of more nontax revenue, finding ways to become the "best county in the nation," and to increase customer satisfaction with county services.

Commissioners also unanimously approved a contract for new optical scan voting machines. The county will pay $5.75 million to buy the machines from Premier Election Solutions. The Florida secretary of state's office is providing $2.5 million toward the purchase. Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said one of the reasons his staff chose Premier was its capabilities for people with disabilities.

The machines will be used in the primary and general elections later this year.

The state decided last year that counties with computer touch-screen voting machines need to replace them with machines that provide a paper trail.

Hillsborough and other counties bought the touch-screen systems in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com