It seems that no matter how low the Augusta Commission aims, they still manage to miss the target.
If there ever was a perfect example of the folly of golden parachutes it would be Maurice McDowell, the former head of the Parks and Recreation Department, who was finally forced to resign in May of last year.
Due to McDowell’s outrageous mismanagement of funds, Commissioner Catherine Rice and her allies were finally able to get a majority on the commission to agree to an audit of the department.
In fact, some commissioners even stressed the time-sensitive nature of having the audit completed so that the new director to replace McDowell could start off with a “clean slate.”
That was a full calendar year ago. The new director, Tameka Dillard Williams, has been on the job since November and the commission only this week got around to hiring a firm to conduct the audit.
The vote was unanimous, with no discussion, as well it should have been; the fact that it took this long to find and contract out with a company is outrageous.
First, the Procurement Department attempted a switch-a-roo by substituting at the last minute a firm that missed the deadline to file a request for proposal due to the mail not being delivered on time, or so they claimed.
Then, it turned out that the company with the lowest bid was only prepared to do half the job, necessitating the entire process to grind to a halt and start all over from scratch.
It is clear that the departments tasked with following the commission’s directive have dug their heels in like a herd of ornery mules and dragged the process out for as long as possible, knowing that eventually their department might land itself under fiscal scrutiny.
We all know that eventually the commission will grudgingly approve more audits. They simply cannot ignore the fact that Housing and Community Development Director Hawthorne Welcher “lost” $6.5 million, and they can ‘t keep Welcher on ice where he chills at home still collecting a paycheck; well, they can, and they likely will unless the public demands otherwise.
The Finance Department and Augusta Land Bank are but two amongst a score of entities that should be in line for a forensic once over along with the Engineering Department and their Stormwater Fee, of which, no one in the government can explain where this hated tax goes after it is collected.
The members of the Charter Review Committee should be taking copious notes on this debacle as they discuss the form a new government should take.
It should not take a solid year to complete what any competent CPA could tackle in a month.
