As Augusta prepares to hire a new recreation director, there’s growing support for auditing the department to set “he or she up for success.”
Commissioner Sean Frantom vowed to demand one at the next commission meeting during a Tuesday committee discussion of department head and elected official spending.
The city began advertising the job about three weeks ago after the abrupt resignation of Recreation and Parks Director Maurice McDowell, who was accused of sexual harassment, fraternization and age discrimination.
“We get criticized a lot because we don’t know what’s going on in our house,” Frantom said, asking how McDowell spent over $26,000 on hotel rooms without providing any receipts.
Finance Director Donna Williams said McDowell had provided receipts, but the media had not requested them.
“There are hotel receipts for the individual that was named in that article,” she said.
Augusta revamped its p-card policies a few years ago, and the process for employee travel requires several steps, she said.
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The department head must first request leave, which must be approved by the administrator’s office. Then he or she requests a travel advance that anticipates the cost of conference registration, airfare, hotel charges and per diems, which also require administrator approval, she said.
The employee takes the trip. If it’s a hotel that accepts checks from Augusta, the city cuts the hotel a check, she said. After the trip, the city “trues up” the advance, requiring a report of what was actually spent to compare with the amount advanced, she said.
Asked if the process was “automated” or had “paper trails,” Williams said it created a paper trail.
Frantom argued using a service such as ADP to process leave and travel requests and spending would give employees fewer opportunities to “manipulate the system.”
Frantom said he had other questions, including who is required to pay to rent community centers or pay admission to events such as Candlelight Jazz versus who gets a free pass, and whether groups such as a traveling all-star team were given blank checks for their travel.
McDowell testified at the trial of former commissioner Sammie Sias, telling the court that receipts were optional when Sias used sales tax funds to renovate Jamestown Community Center. McDowell previously told commissioners a “ledger” containing documentation of the project had gotten lost. Sias is now in federal prison for destroying evidence and lying in an investigation into the spending.
“There was a green book that got lost and now the commissioner, we know where he is,” Frantom said.
Frantom called for a three-year audit of Recreation spending in the areas he mentioned. Commissioner Catherine Smith McKnight she supported paying for an audit.
Commissioner Stacy Pulliam returned to the topic of standard operating procedures and whether departments have and use them. Interim administrator Takiyah Douse said she’ll present a report next month on what each department has.
Having SOPs is good for turnover and will “’make sure that the next person can pick up where they left off,” Pulliam said.
Commissioner Alvin Mason asked Interim Recreation Director Charles Jackson if his days in the department made him think an audit is needed. Jackson said he’d need guidance “about what parameters you’d like searched.”
Douse asked if the commission remained interested in auditing all city departments over a four-year period, for which the city obtained bids last year.
Frantom said audits weren’t needed “unless there’s smoke and a fire.” He said he’d opposed a citywide audit because it would stop all city business, but that the commission could apply lessons learned from Recreation to other departments.
Constitutional officers are another matter, Williams said to a question from Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle about elected official spending.
The commission sets the elected officials’ budgets, but the courts have consistently found the officials can spend the funds legally as they see fit, she said.
