MDA letter: New Grant Calculation Policy

No grant check today... Instead, we received a letter from MDA.

"The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) Homeowner Assistance Program (HAP) has adopted a new policy for calculating grant awards. The new policy will adjust the starting values for grants to use the highest value of three (3) assessments:

- The Original Starting Value for your property as described in your closing package.
- An SBA Assessment of your damage amount
- An Allied Adjusting Assessment of your damage amount"

Sounds great! Of course we already know the Allied Adjusting Assessment is too low. We also know that the SBA Assessment is too low since we requested a copy of the report months ago... So our hope lies with this "Original Starting Value" figure -- whatever that is.

But before I get into trying to figure out what the OSV is exactly -- there was one more paragraph of interest in the actual letter:

"A) If you have not yet received your check:

As a result of this new calculation, the amount of your qualified grant award may differ from the actual grant amount. You will be provided with an Explanation of Disbursement for your final award amount. You will receive this letter in a separate mailing from your check."

This is not good. If they are actually going to do these recalculations before sending remaining checks out to people -- then we are all facing yet another delay.

But back to the "Original Starting Value" figure. I pulled out the closing package and located the OSV figure. This figure is calculated by multiplying the percent damage assessment by the adjusted insured value of the home. Hmmm... I thought it was the percent damage assessment that we were all unhappy with.... For that matter -- how is it even possible that the Allied Adjusting Assessment could ever differ from the Original Starting Value if Allied is the assessment responsible for the 'percent damage' used in the calculations?

According to the example page included with our letter - the MDA is implying that Allied American provided a dollar figure damage assessment and that this dollar figure damage assessment might conceivably differ from the percent damage assessment. If this is true -- then where on earth did MDA come up with the percent damage assessment itself? For three months we've been led to believe those percentages came from Allied American.

Exactly what good do any new calculations do if they still rely on the same percent damage figures we have all complained about? The only benefit I can see from the examples would be for people who happened to have a higher SBA assessment.... But that would mean using the highest value of two assessments -- not three as the letter states.

Many questions -- still no answers.

And to clarify -- this letter is a bulk-mailed message and has nothing to do with any appeal on our part but is instead yet another change of horses in the middle of the stream.

I'm doubting yet again. Is this grant program real?