Taxpayers, when is enough, enough? Don’t you think it is way past time for a forensic audit?
Just take a short look back for a moment. A lack of or nonexistence of maintenance in parks or recreation and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the scoring tower rest rooms at Diamond Lakes Park, and issues were not corrected.
Opinion
Now, many more thousands of dollars are going to be spent again to correct the same issues.
There is no money for infrastructure, or so it seems.
No new road paving or re-surfacing is occurring. No real progress of utilities being performed. Storm water fees are not being spent wisely or efficiently. The previous Mayor’s expenses are still not accounted for or explained. My Brother’s Keeper’s funds were spent for other things not covered under the program.
No invoices or receipts for monies spent at Jamestown Community Center have been presented, or so it appears. So, where is the money? Where is the accountability?
Whenever anyone in Augusta’s government is asked questions concerning these matters, the questioner meets with an indignant attitude and incoherent answers. It appears that no one wants any questions asked.
While serving as Super District 10 Commissioner I, along with District 3 Commissioner Catherine McKnight, asked for a forensic audit on more than one occasion. Each time it was voted down. The explanation given for the NO votes was that there was just no indication of any wrongdoing within the government.
Okay, so the two of us tried another approach. How about an in-depth audit? Again, we met with the same NO votes. So, yet another approach was made. This time just a single in-depth audit of the Stormwater fees and program.
Again, the NO votes rang out loudly.
It was agreed that the Engineering Department that oversees the program would present a report of what was taking place within the storm water fee program and where the money was being spent, and the report contained very expensive grass cutting, and litter pick up. There are still no concrete answers to satisfy Commissioner McKnight, myself or the taxpayers.
All the while, Finance Director Donna Williams maintained that a forensic audit would disrupt the workings of the city government, take months and months to complete and cost millions for an audit that just wasn’t needed. The reason given for not needing any additional audit was because a yearly audit of the city finances was already being done.
According to Williams, each audit gave the city high financial scores, and Augusta’s rating was very high for financial stability.
The same accounting firm has conducted this yearly audit for several years. A question persists of how such an audit, that kept returning high financial kudos, didn’t find and uncover the improper reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.
At some point in time at least four high positioned city employees became aware of this issue that has been occurring since 2017.
A letter from the IRS was sent to Betty Griffin of the Augusta payroll department, and in June 2022 the IRS requested a meeting with Williams.
Human Resources Director Anita Rookard would have or should have known about this issue because she deals with the city employee’s issues.
Interim City Administrator Takiyah Douse should have known because she deals with and oversees the aforementioned people.
Still, it seems that nothing concerning the matter was ever reported to the commissioners or made public. Now the taxpayers of Augusta have been hit with a fine and penalties in the amount of $ 2,059,216.22. With the other years involved the citizen’s may be hit with a total of $10 million dollars in fines and penalties.
Don’t mean to repeat, however, a forensic audit would have discovered this gross debacle and other acts of malfeasance. That would certainly mean people would be held accountable, and the people would finally get answers to, “Where’s the money.”
I watched pro fishing in chambers this past week. If it wasn’t so serious a matter it would have been somewhat amusing as President Gary Coker of Central EMS, the designated ambulance provider stood before the commission to answer questions.
A commissioner would ask a question such as, how many ambulances will we have on call? Or, what will the response times be? With each question Mr. Coker would pretty much answer with the baited hook answer.
It depends on what you ask for or expect, Coker repeatedly replied. Cha Ching !!!! The commissioners were taking the bait like a school of hungry large-mouth bass.
I have to give Mayor Garnett Johnson credit for exhibiting good judgment and logic. He called for certain highly qualified medical professionals to be on the committee to iron out what the city EMS needs would be.
Those recommended for the committee are Augusta Piedmont CEO Lily Henson, AU Medical Center Emergency Medical Specialist Becky Abell and a yet-to-be named professional from Doctor’s Hospital. It would also seem to be appropriate that a couple of emergency room triage doctors or nurses be included to render their thoughts.
The five chosen to negotiate from the city are City Attorney Wayne Brown, Fire Chief Antonio Burden, 911 Director Danial Dunlap, Procurement Director Geri Sams and Interim Administrator Takiyah Douse. Douse will also chair the committee.
Citizens, these are the same five people that helped run Gold Cross out of town. This should prove to be very interesting.
Seems like one of the biggest issues with the ambulance service is response times. When grandma catches her big toe on the corner of the bed, the response time should be the same as if Grandma suffered a heart attack.
The problem is that while the toe hurts like the dickens, the heart attack can kill you.
Nothing is ever discussed about the delivery time to the hospital. Guess after the patient is loaded into the ambulance there’s no hurry; just get to the hospital when you can.
When you get Grandma’s hurting toe to the hospital the ambulance has to wait until Grandma is admitted, this may take a while because the emergency room admits real emergencies ahead of a hurt toe.
Arriving by ambulance doesn’t mean you are admitted quicker if it’s no real emergency. All the while, the ambulance is out of service. This is called “Holding The Wall.” It can take hours for the ambulance to be released into service again.
So, the taxpaying citizens may just be in need of an ambulance because of suffering a heart attack they may have when they learn how much the subsidy will be.
Stay tuned citizens. You just can’t make this stuff up.
