Trying to follow the Augusta VaxUp! program money trail feels like getting a shot. But the pain is not in your arm. It’s more like a pain in the butt!
You’ve got the Richmond County Health Department that says it’s in charge of giving the COVID-19 shots and $200 in gift cards, but that they don’t handle any other financial matters of the $1.5 million Vax Up program. But the records they do have are so filled with discrepancies, they raise more questions than provide answers.
And you’ve got four other organizations, Christ Community Health, Medical Associates Plus, Nightingale Infusion and Pharmacy and the Augusta University Student Health Clinic offering the incentives as well.
Then you’ve got city Administrator Odie Donald’s office that responds to Open Records questions about the program being paid for with American Rescue Plan dollars by saying the office has no VaxUp records and that everything about the program is 100 percent handled by the health department. But Donald won’t answer the phone and explain anything despite numerous calls and emails. Furthermore, Donald’s office has a PIO, a position which obviously doesn’t mean Public Information Officer. It means Please Inquire Other Places – Not Here. She refuses to answer basic questions over the phone and demands that every question be sent in writing. And then she doesn’t answer them.
The health department’s shoddy records that it had to revise due to errors after sending them to The Augusta Press. A major error was that the county spent $91,775 on shipping the gift cards, according to a story in the newspaper on Tuesday by Senior Reporter Scott Hudson.
All of This Money for about 1,600 Covid Shots
The total expense of the government program, which includes activation fees, office supplies, shipping and security services, amounts so far to $26,883, which means the city has spent more money giving out the incentives than the actual dollar figure of incentives given out, according to Hudson’s story.
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The health department ledger report also shows $82,500 allocated for administrative fees, and a total cost to the city, to date, of $191,884.295. (Their .295 typo, not ours.)
The ledger also shows $18,952.98 has been spent on “indirect costs,” but there is no explanation of what those costs include.
So, in an effort to learn the nature of those indirect costs, the newspaper sent an Open Records request Tuesday for copies of all files, records and other documents in the city’s possession that refer, reflect or relate to:“Copies of all invoices for expenses related to vax program marketing and promotion not spent through the health department.”
On Wednesday, the city law department responded, stating that Augusta, Ga., does not have documents or records in its possession that are responsive to the request.
According to the health department’s ledger, the city has pre-purchased 3,300 cards for a total face value of $330,000. However, the ledger does not show how many cards were given to each vendor, and no tracking mechanism has been set in place to prevent fraud. Actually all procedures seem to be in place to facilitate fraud.
The gift cards being handed out work the same way as a gift card purchased at any store. Once a gift card is loaded with cash, it cannot be refunded and becomes virtually untraceable.
In other words, “You can’t follow the money trail when there’s a gift card,” said Augusta Commissioner John Clarke. “Stick a needle in your arm. Here’s a $100 gift card. There’s no accountability as to who got those gift cards. Not that I know of.”
Clarke, a former singer and band leader who performed throughout the country for almost a decade knows about promotions.
“Say they’re having a guitar pull at the James Brown Arena,” he said. “The promoter says, ‘We’re going to give radio station XYZ 20 tickets to give away.’ The first person who calls gets two free tickets. Then they take the other 18 tickets and give them away to their friends and relatives.”
Commissioner Catherine McKnight said the VaxUp program has no accountability.
McKnight helped homeless people fill out their paperwork at a recent city vaccination drive through. Some people showed up for their second shot with no vaccination cards, she said.
“They have no records of these people,” she said. “How do they know they hadn’t already been vaccinated and just came to get another shot and a gift card?”
McKnight also asked, “What are they going to do with all of these leftover gift cards?”
Clarke said they’d be stolen.
“Absolutely,” he said.
Your Government Does Not Want You to Know What It’s Doing.
While Augusta officials often talk about transparency, the only transparency they’re interested in is to highlight something they want to highlight, like an electric vehicle recharging station, a new transit bus or a commissioner completing training from the Georgia Municipal Association or Association of County Commissioners Georgia. It’s a quid pro quo situation. The city pays them thousands of dollars a year in dues and conference fees, and they in turn award certificates of achievement to the commissioners.
But if the media wants some detailed financial information such as how the money for the VaxUp Augusta! program is being spent (see above) they make it as costly as possible to obtain. So expensive, most outlets will just drop it and go on to the next trailer fire or some fool in a bucket truck trying to drive under the Olive Road underpass.
No, when it comes to the inner workings, they’ll charge you an arm and a leg. The Augusta Press spent thousands of dollars trying to get receipts and invoices from the mayor’s credit-card and My Brother’s Keeper’s spending under the state’s Open Records law. It was like pulling teeth too. Appears as if they only want to keep the brothers’ secrets.
The response to the latest request from the newspaper for copies of actual budget proposals each city department sent to the administrator’s office was that it would involve submissions from 55 city departments and about 25 requests from outside agencies and would take 35 additional business days from when the newspaper agreed to pay the $2,555 cost which excluded copying costs.
Couldn’t they just send them all an email and say, “You know that budget proposal you sent the administrator? Well, please send it again.”
No, they want to charge the newspaper $25.37 an hour for 20 hours equaling $507.40 to cover administrative costs for the search and retrieval of the requested documents.
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And they want to charge $15.62 an hour for 40 hours equaling $624.80 to cover the administrative costs for scanning the requested documents.
They also want to charge $41.64 an hour for 20 hours equaling $832.80 to cover the administrative costs to review and supervise access to the requested documents.
And they want to charge $23.60 an hour for 25 hours equaling $590.00 to cover the administrative costs to review and redact the requested documents. Redact? Budget proposals?
So much for government transparency, Open Records and Freedom of Information. Unless you’re a millionaire with money to burn, it’s not worth it which is what they’re counting on.
A Solution Looking for a Problem
More unnecessary government intrusion into your lives and another Democrat Socialist red star Mayor Hardie Davis can stick on his $500 resume. Under the city’s new nondiscrimination ordinance presented by Davis’ non-discrimination subcommittee last week, Augusta residents who were billed for seven years of garbage pickup although they were exempt, ideally could sue the commission for discrimination. And you’d think they’d have a case because the vote was along racial lines. The residents are white and wanted the full seven year’s refund of $2,100, the six black commissioners voted to refund only three years while the four white commissioners, who wanted to give them the full refund, voted no.
But the residents can’t sue because the ordinance does not provide a remedy for actual discrimination by the Augusta government, one of the largest employers in Richmond County. If every employer, business, “places of public resort, assemblage or amusement” and such in the county is subject to having to defend themselves from charges of perceived discrimination, real or imagined, why not the government? Why exclude it? If it’s good for private businesses, why isn’t it good to protect the citizens who interact with the city government?
Also exempt from the provisions of the ordinance are religious organizations that employ an individual of a particular religion to perform work connected with the performance of religious activities. A good example of that would be a Catholic church hiring a priest to say Mass and hear confessions. It would be more than a little distressing if the church would be subject to defending itself from a charge of discrimination for not hiring a Baptist minister to perform those duties.
Exempt too, are nonprofit private clubs, not open to the public that provide lodging. How many of those does Augusta have?
Also, did Davis or the subcommittee check to see how many EEOC employment discrimination complaints are filed in Richmond County annually before proposing such an ordinance?
I believe the ordinance will pass overwhelmingly Tuesday because what Augusta politician today would vote against a non-discrimination ordinance even if it’s mainly an exercise in political posturing at the public’s expense.
A Candidate Who Understands the Values of Dollars and Words
While the government is spending money like it’s going out of style, one former Augusta commissioner and 2022 mayoral candidate is pinching pennies and renovating his old campaign signs.
Former Commissioner Marion Williams said he’s updating 10 large signs from his last District 9 commission run that said, “Leadership you can depend on” then “Vote for Marion Williams, Super District 9 Commissioner” and at the bottom, “Can I have your vote?”
The only thing he’ll have to do is paint over the “Super District 9 Commissioner” part and in its place add, “Mayor of Augusta.”
Sylvia Cooper is a Columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
