Employees of the Augusta Finance Department are slowly getting used to seeing something that has been absent from the mayor’s office for the eight years of the Davis administration: receipts.
This has not stopped Mayor Garnett Johnson’s critics from fueling the rumor mill that Johnson overspent in the amount of around $200,000 his first year in office.
The murmurs on the street accuse Johnson of having a wild time in Washington, D.C., partying and dining on the taxpayer’s dime.
At a recent commission meeting, Commissioner Tony Lewis nearly had an aneurysm over purported news that the mayor was going to lavish his marble palace office with $25,000 worth of new furniture.
Johnson is being accused of precisely what others in government have been proven to be doing; only in the case of the mayor, none of those things happened, and the receipts submitted by Johnson prove it.
MORE: Former Davis chief of staff being sued for concealing public records
Close scrutiny of the mayor’s office budget, which is readily available online, along with bank account and credit card expenses, show that as fiscal year 2023 was waning, there was actually a surplus of nearly $100,000 left over.
The mayor does not use a county credit card and uses his personal credit card for travel and other purchases related to his job. Shortly before the end of the fiscal year, Johnson submitted $41,885.68 in receipts from his personal card.
This seems like a large amount of money; however, the devil is in the details.
The mayor submitted the receipts, and they were immediately made available through an open records request with no redactions.
A good chunk of the spending was travel related for events such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is basically required travel since Johnson sits on several national and statewide boards.
A review of hotel receipts and a call to the Hilton hotel in Atlanta verified that Johnson stayed in the hotel’s basic single occupancy room. While the mayor did use the hotel’s valet service, there were no room services charges on any of the itemized receipts.
That final receipt tally also shows that the mayor’s office paid the required dues to the various conferences on the private credit card and turned in the receipts for reimbursement.
The mayor has traveled twice to Washington, D.C., and through the Uber receipts, it is possible to literally follow the mayor’s trail through the capital going from one meeting to another.
“Most people think that my role is purely ceremonial, but there are actually a lot of activities that go on behind the scenes that the public doesn’t see, and it is all above board. It is the job of the mayor to lobby the staff of senators and congresspeople for grants and the like. Augusta has to vie for attention if we are going to get it,” Johnson said.
According to Johnson, his office worked hard to secure Augusta as a Biden “Workforce Hub” initiative partner. Augusta’s inclusion in that program led to a personal invitation to the White House and a coveted seat at the State of the Union address.
Restaurant receipts from Johnson’s travels to Washington do show that the mayor dined in some very posh restaurants, but it looks like he may have ordered from the kids menu. One bill for a high-end seafood restaurant shows a tab of $38, including a slightly over 20% tip.
While there are receipts from Walmart, the itemized bill is for standard office supplies and party favors. There are no purchases on those documents that appear to be items for personal use.
While former Mayor Deke Copenhaver may have earned the moniker of the “Boy King” and former Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. the “Emperor with No Clothes;” Johnson might be called the “Sultan of Swag and King of Candy.”
The mayor’s office spent enough money on candy to cause a cavity crisis.
“You wouldn’t believe how much candy costs! We had the Christmas parade, the MLK parade and the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, we bought what we thought was enough candy to throw to the crowd, and we still ran out,” Johnson said.
Johnson also added that his office’s stock of items such as volunteer tee-shirts was seriously depleted, and so some of the surplus was used to restock those items.
It appears that the t-shirts for this year’s Mayor’s Masters Reception are in stock and ready for the 2024 event, paid for with last year’s budget.
On one occasion, Johnson splurged and treated parade volunteers to a pizza party. The mayor’s office bought four thin-crust Pepperoni Lovers, four thin-crust Meat Lovers and four Super Supreme pan pizzas at a total cost of $188.15.
All of those relatively small expenses add up over time.
According to the city’s financial records, even with the last minute expenditures, the mayor’s office ended the fiscal year with a near $60,000 surplus.
As a news reporter, I have an obligation to present empirical facts backed by documents or human sources. However, in my role as a columnist, I feel the obligation to point out hypocrisy when I encounter it.
For certain commissioners to cover their eyes and look away when hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars are proven to be missing or misspent across the government spectrum and then clutch their pearls when the mayor purchases event specific tee-shirts is nothing less than pure hypocrisy personified.
In their eyes, there is no problem with Land Bank Director Shawn Edwards lavishly dropping $700 on one meal, but Johnson’s decision to treat his staff to $30.12 worth of donuts is nothing short of a political crisis.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
