VOL. 9 – April 6, 2023

Former USDA Administrator Chad Parker Joins Summit

Chad Parker recently joined the Summit team as a subject-matter expert and plans to continue assisting with federal loan and grant programs that deliver infrastructure and facility improvements. Prior to joining Summit, Mr. Parker served rural America for more than 31 years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development.  Read more about Mr. Parker here.

Register for Summit’s Fair Housing Month Webinar!

On April 13, join Summit director Josh Goldberg, senior manager Corey West, and director Kate Lynch Machado for a FREE live webinar from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., entitled “The Impact of Investors on Local Housing Markets and Potential Policy Implications.” Hear their expert take on the current impact investors who purchase residential properties have and what’s been happening over time in a few large U.S. counties. Register now using the link below!

Our Newest Case Studies

Mitigation Loan Communication Strategies Evaluation for the U.S. Small Business Administration

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) wanted to conduct an experiment to determine whether new communication materials would increase uptake of the Disaster Assistance Loan mitigation increase option. Summit conducted an experiment to test the impact of newly developed communication materials and empowered the SBA with evidence-based conclusions and recommendations to help improve uptake of the mitigation option.

Curious about our other case studies? See more here.

What’s New on Federal Credit Fridays

Episode 14: Andrew Berke of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service

In this podcast, Berke discusses the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service, which provides financing for critical infrastructure or infrastructure improvements to rural communities. These include water and waste treatment, electric power and telecommunications services, and broadband access. This financing helps expand economic opportunities and improve the quality of life for rural residents.

Missed an episode? Listen to past Federal Credit Fridays here.

About Federal Credit Fridays: The U.S. government is one of the largest lenders and credit guarantors on earth. Its portfolio is estimated at over $3.6 trillion, as measured by loan assets and the face value of loan guarantees. The government uses credit for a wide variety of policy missions, including housing, higher education, small businesses, rural and urban economic development, infrastructure, and export promotion, among others. This podcast will familiarize you with the vast world of federal credit, and we hope that you’ll learn about similarities and differences between these programs as well as the importance of their work to achieving policy missions within the framework of public-private collaboration.

The Impact of Interest Rates on Federal Interest Costs

In 2022, the federal deficit approached almost $1.4 trillion. This represents an increase relative to pre-COVID spending. To finance this level of spending, the federal government must issue Treasury bonds and pay interest on these bonds, a cost that is significantly growing due to rising interest rates.

As older bonds expire, new bonds must be issued to finance the payments. This rollover of bonds can become costly, especially in the current environment of rising interest rates, because older, maturing bonds may have been previously issued at lower rates. Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions on how to address this rising cost: Congress and the president must make difficult choices to avoid further crowding out of other government investment.

Read the full post by Joe McCormack and Sarah Cunningham on the Summit blog here.

Summit attends the Lean Six Sigma World Conference on March 15–16

Summit director Samuel Dugger and manager Kellen MacBeth, leaders of Summit’s Program and Business Modernization practice, attended the 2023 Lean Six Sigma World Conference in Orlando, Florida. They enhanced their knowledge of applying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to better meet federal and corporate business objectives and are looking forward to applying industry best practices to Summit’s PBM portfolio of projects.

Summit sponsors AGA Women’s Forum on March 16

Summit was excited to sponsor the AGA Women’s Forum on March 16. Director Sarah Cunningham moderated a panel, entitled “Centering Equity to Build Resilience,” that featured the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Recovery Programs staff talking about how they have centered equity in design, implementation, and continuous improvement to help recover from the economic effects of COVID-19 and build economic resilience.

Summit presents at the 2023 ACES Evolve Conference on March 24

Summit senior consultant Melissa Cichantek presented with Kim Cragg, managing editor at the Department of Veterans Affairs, on “Editing for and in the Government.” Their presentation covered common issues in government editing, fighting red-tape burnout, approaching and reducing jargon, working with in-house and external government clients, and more. Watch it on Summit’s YouTube channel.

Calling all undergrads interested in data! Summit and the Social Data Science Center at the University of Maryland are excited to host the 9th annual ASA DC DataFest on April 14–16. This year’s competition has a hybrid model, so teams can compete in person or virtually.  Spots are still available! Register using the link below.

Summit Sponsors Smithsonian Visit for Black History Month, Reflects on Upcoming DEI Initiatives and Progress for Women’s History Month

In celebration of Black History Month in February 2023, Summit was proud to sponsor a visit to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to view the exhibit “I Dream a World,” which presents portraits of remarkable Black women throughout history. Thank you to everyone who came out to learn and reflect with us!

Women’s History Month in March is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and celebrate. While Summit celebrates all women, we especially celebrate the women of Summit. In 2020, Summit established a DEI Committee to help us strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion in our core values. In just two years, we’re ecstatic to report that we’ve achieved gender parity firm-wide and furthered our commitment to ensuring there are no differences in compensation across all aspects of staff diversity.

There is still a lot to do, but we’re working harder than ever toward our 2024 DEI goal of gender parity across our leadership. As Summit senior manager Christine Shaughnessy, a DEI Committee founding member, said, “I’m proud of the initiative Summit has taken to uplift, empower, and advance women at Summit and excited for our plans to come.”

🎉 Summiteers Gather for Holiday Party and Leadership Training 🎉

Summit started the year off strong with two days of leadership training and strategic planning (below), but it’s not all work and no play. For the first time in three years, we hosted an in-person holiday party (above) in February and staff traveled from across the United States to attend. It was great to see familiar faces and celebrate face to face with our remote colleagues!

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Federal Housing Administration — Risk Management and Capital Assessment Projections (RMCAP)

Summit has supported the Federal Housing Administration in designing, maintaining, and running the RMCAP model since 2014. This contract not only draws on our modeling capabilities but also our expertise in federal credit.

Office of Residential Care Facilities — 232 Loan Underwriting and Closing

Summit will provide loan underwriting and closing support to help HUD’s Office of Residential Care Facilities process a backlog of loan applications, as well as new applications, with NuvoLogic.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

National Agricultural Statistics Service — Automated Editing and Imputation System

A modification was executed to add funding that provides additional deliverables, including enhancements to the parser.

Rural Development (RD) — Underwriting Training

In a continuation of work we’ve done with RD over the past several years, Summit will provide two comprehensive, weeklong credit underwriting training sessions for RD staff on-site.

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Office of Recovery Programs (ORP)

Summit will support additional application review for the Emergency Capital Investment Program and was also awarded an extension to continue supporting ORP PMO functions.

Coronavirus Economic Relief for Transportation Services (CERTS) Support

Summit was awarded its option year to continue implementation support for Treasury’s CERTS grant program.

Federal Financing Bank — Budget Advisory

Summit will provide broad technical advisory support to the Federal Financing Bank under this task order on matters related to their budget processes and compliance with OMB Circular A-11, including budget process improvements, development of their capabilities as a shared service provider, and federal credit trainings.

U.S. Small Business Administration

Office of Performance, Planning, and the Chief Financial Officer — CARES Act Support

Summit, through Williams Adley, will expand on work to provide data analytics and visualization support.

Office of Performance, Planning, and the Chief Financial Officer — CARES Act Support

This modification adds funding to continue building out the Small Business Administration's SVOG dashboard in PowerBI and complete our data analysis and report.

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Federal Student Aid

This modification continues funding for the current work Summit is doing to modernize Federal Student Aid’s systems, implement congressionally mandated changes to the student aid process, and communicate effectively with students, borrowers, and schools.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Model Risk Management

Summit was awarded its second option year as part of the current contract at FDIC Model Risk Management to provide technical validation of models and potentially model governance. Summit is scheduled to perform four model validations per year. Summit has been at FDIC performing model validations since 2014 and has established credibility with multiple changing management regimes.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Program – Program Support

This is an incremental funding modification for Summit to continue to support WIFIA Program operations. Summit provides operational support through stakeholder outreach, application submission, review, and project selection.

WIFIA Program – Credit Support

This is an incremental funding modification to continue to support credit reform budgeting for the WIFIA Program. Summit provides federal credit support, including budget formulation and reestimate calculation, broad program development and process development, and portfolio management support.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Financial Analysis

Summit will continue to be a subcontractor to Integrated Financial Engineering for data support for CFPB investigations.

Legal Analytics Support Services

Summit won the recompete to continue providing legal analytics support to CFPB's Data Science and Analytics team. Summit works with the team to develop algorithms, visualizations, and analytics solutions for CFPB legal initiatives, including investigations and examinations.

U.S. Department of Commerce

Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS)

Summit will support the Department of Commerce in the development of policies, procedures, and analytical tools needed to establish a loan and/or loan guarantee program.

U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

Operational Support Services

Summit was awarded a modification to continue providing federal credit support, including budget formulation, reestimates, and program development policy advice and guidance, for the Development Finance Corporation.

Fannie Mae

Model Risk Management – Dodd Frank Act Stress Testing (DFAST) 

Fannie Mae Model Risk Management is increasing its oversight over the DFAST, and Summit will play a critical role in the project management around standing up this function and executing this cycle’s oversight. The project will last 3 months and brings Summit key staff to the forefront of a critical function for Fannie Mae and the industry.

New York State Education Department

Replication

As a subcontractor to Education Analytics, Summit will replicate the production models that Education Analytics uses to develop growth scores for students, teachers, principals, and schools for the New York State Education Department.

Model Reproduction

Having proven ourselves in a 3-month starter contract, Education Analytics continues to rely on Summit to independently reproduce the model they built for the New York State Education Department. The team uses both R and Python to perform the work.

U.S. Department of the Air Force

Barracks Privatization

Summit is a subcontractor to Jones Lang LaSalle and helps provide specialized reviews, analysis, and recommendations to support Department of the Air Force decisions regarding OMB scoring impacts, utilization of federal credit, and transaction structuring in the department’s portfolio of privatized assets.

The California Endowment

Portfolio Management Underwriting 

Summit’s contract with The California Endowment was extended by another 2 years. Summit provides underwriting and portfolio management support for the endowment’s Program-Related Investments, including underwriting of CDFIs, performing project-specific due diligence, annual reviews, financial analysis, and other related support.

St. George’s University

Market Research Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V)

Summit will be performing an IV&V on St. George’s University’s marketing materials. The work includes replicating statistics, evaluating methodology, and performing sensitivity analyses.

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