An effort to audit certain city departments gained momentum Tuesday, even as the city’s finances received a clean bill of health.
“It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for,” Commissioner Catherine Smith McKnight said when her audit agenda item came up. It was the latest push by McKnight to examine city finances closely, after she and former Commissioner John Clarke called repeatedly for audits last year.
“It’s out there. Penalties left and right as far as (these) IRS (fines.) It just seems like the plot keeps getting thicker,” McKnight said.
In February, the commission learned the IRS fined the city more than $2 million for failing to comply with Affordable Care Act tax reporting requirements. The fine was for 2017, but the reporting error likely continued in 2018 and 2019.
McKnight didn’t call to audit any departments connected to the error Tuesday, or to audit the entire city government as Clarke wanted.
The motion she presented to the city finance committee called for “a forensic audit at the department level, rather than the entire city government” that looked at departments “randomly, starting with the mayor’s office,” for the years 2020-2022.
After the meeting Tuesday, Mayor Garnett Johnson, who took office this year, gave the proposal his blessing.
“I think that’s a great idea, especially at the department level. I’ve always said we owe the transparency to the constituents, to our taxpayers,” Johnson said. “There are other neighboring agencies that do a similar process to where they are not only able to audit the financials, but also look at their internal processes, at how they work. Considering we have some challenges in some of our deliverables to the taxpayers, I’m in support of that.”
Plan is to start in former mayor’s office
Explaining the rationale for starting in former Mayor Hardie Davis’ office, McKnight gave examples.
“I’ve got reasons we need to start there. My Brother’s Keeper, storage unit, farewell party,” she said.
As early as 2017, Davis was spending funds from his $38,750 My Brother’s Keeper budget on items unrelated to the youth program, such as a political consultant. While also under investigation for campaign violations by the State Ethics Commission, his questionable spending of public funds continued, including on a lavish farewell party and a storage unit to which only he had access.
McKnight couldn’t make the motion Tuesday because she isn’t on the finance committee where the item appeared, but she promised to be back next week with a “tweaked” motion.
Commissioner Bobby Williams raised the same concerns he and other commissioners had in recent years when they blocked all efforts to audit the financial activities of Davis or former Commissioner Sammie Sias. Sias was convicted last year in U.S. District Court for obstruction of justice and lying to a federal agent during an investigation into misspending of public funds.
Williams claimed McKnight wanted to audit the entire government at once and said the commission had no evidence on which to conduct one.
“We just want to do an audit and hopefully we find a penny on the floor that’s out of place,” Williams said, asking the city finance director how much a forensic audit of the entire city government would cost.
Financial report shows surpluses, strong collections
Finance Director Donna Williams said for reference, Grovetown’s 15-month audit of its water department cost $137,000. The audit followed an FBI raid at city hall after which then-City Clerk Vicky Capetillo would go to federal prison.
The news otherwise was good from Williams, who presented the city’s preliminary financial report for 2022. The city’s general fund ended the year with a $4.8 million surplus; fire protection had a $2.3 million surplus.
Augusta sales tax collections remain “continue to be strong for us,” Williams said. Collections of a single one of the 1% taxes averaged around $39 million in 2018-2020; the last two years have averaged nearly $47 million, she said.
