The Atlanta City Council in March gave employees 30 days to hand in all unpaid invoices after an embarrassing case of the city owing a company $2.7 million because the city hadn't paid it in six months.

Last week, Chief Financial Officer Janice Davis gave the council an update on invoices the city now has in hand:

The latest

Why is this happening?

Davis has said some city workers over the years paid for items with funds that were supposed to be used for other purposes. Many of the problems were unearthed between late December and early January when Atlanta converted to a new computer software system.

Still, Davis said her staff can't be sure they have every invoice.

"This is no way that I can guarantee that these are all of the invoices that are out there," she said.

We're working on it!

By April 18, Davis said her office received 3,517 invoices totaling $59.6 million. At the end of the month, Davis said there were 2,865 invoices totaling $23.3 million that finance officials say need more work before they can be processed. Some bills already have been paid, and city officials said the remaining invoices totaling $17.4 million are being paid.

Davis said most of the invoices are in the Aviation and Watershed Management departments. Those departments are enterprise funds, which means they are not affected by the city's budget problems.

Davis said the city has the money to pay the bills. She said her staff has requested two extra employees to work on the problem.

The punishment

Mayor Shirley Franklin's staff is pushing legislation to have the city's auditor investigate any invoice that does not go through the proper purchasing-order process.

Councilwoman Felicia Moore wondered why employees who violate the purchasing guidelines are not just fired. "People can follow rules and follow procedures or they can suffer the consequences," she said.