Dealing with government bureaucracy is nothing new. But when you know whom to call, cutting through the red tape can be like Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown slicing through an opponent’s defensive line.
“This goes back about almost eight years,” recalls Michael McManus, of McManus, Dosen & Co. “We audit a number of (Housing and Urban Development) subsidized rental projects and HUD is continually revising what it wants out of auditors. Like every other government agency, there is a ton of bureaucracy and I get mail from them all the time.
“I got one that said, ‘We have issued a brand new audit guide. Scrap everything you’ve got. This new document … this is the bible. Don’t do any more audits without this.’ So I said, ‘Fine. How do I get this?’”
McManus called the local HUD office, which referred him to a regional office in Chicago, which referred him to Washington D.C., which referred him back to Chicago.
“I bounced around and probably talked to 10 or 15 people,” he says. “No one seemed to be able to send me this guide that they were requiring everyone to use.”
It was about this time that a solution presented itself.
“One of our clients happens to be Gene Hickerson, who used to play football with the Cleveland Browns. And I just happened to mention this in passing to him. And Gene says, ‘I used to play with Jack Kemp’ — who at the time was Secretary of HUD under the Bush Administration — and he says, ‘I’ll take care of it for you.’”
What Hickerson did, McManus doesn’t know.
“But I got a real nice letter on official stationary back from Jack Kemp, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, thanking me for my interest, promising me the guide was on the way — a nice letter from a cabinet member,” he says.
Kemp followed up a month later with a letter asking if McManus got the guide. Several months after that, when some new publications came out, another letter arrived, saying, “If you have any trouble getting these documents, let me know. And tell Gene I said ‘Hi.’”
Daniel G. Jacobs