A federal audit questions the handling of millions of dollars awarded the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Police Department.
The audit of several grants -- awarded 2006-2009 -- sharply criticizes staffing decisions, the caliber of people assigned to report progress to U.S. Department of Justice and lack of attention to details.
Several paragraphs in the report are devoted to $197,466 in the 2006 federal budget for a city program to teach 1,200 young people conflict resolution skills. Atlanta recruited the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to run the program.
The report said the SCLC spent $106,500 of the money on salaries and benefits. The SCLC also reimbursed its executive director $1,835 for gas bought at stations between Atlanta and her home in Opelika, Ala.
“It is unclear to us how the gasoline purchases helped the city achieve the program goal to teach conflict resolution skills to 1,200 city of Atlanta youths," the report said.
Incoming SCLC President Dr. Howard Creecy said a distinction must be made between the current SCLC and the group that used the grant money.
"The grant was awarded in 2007, at a time when the leadership and foundation were headed by people no longer associated with this organization," he said.
"We are not the people subject to this investigation," he said. "We ourselves have sought to investigate this and other matters."
Progress reports on the program claimed 756 people attended conflict resolution programs on June 30, 2008, and 257 were at the session Aug. 30, 2008.
“We received one sign-in sheet showing that 19 youths attended conflict resolution training on June 2, 2007,” the auditors wrote. “No additional sign-in records were provided to us.”
The audit also found fault with how Recovery Act funds -- awarded to create jobs -- and those meant to improve public safety, were used.
Federal auditors examined records concerning more than $9.2 million in federal grants for law enforcement. According to the report, those funds were included in $16.9 million Atlanta has received under the 2009 Recovery Act.
Some specific complaints include:
-- The city incorrectly reported the number of jobs saved or created because of the grants.
-- At least $191,161 in expenditures did not have information supporting the expenditure or the money was spent on something the grants did not allow.
-- Reports were issued late – in some cases by at least a year – or not at all.
-- There were not enough staff experienced with handling grants so money from three grants still had not been claimed 14 months after it was approved. The report did not detail how much money those three grants represented. Typically, grant money is distributed in several quantities as the funds are need.
The city's explanations for the short-comings were offered to auditors during visits or in a letter dated July 23, 2010, after the auditors' findings were released to the city.
They included:
-- A computer password was lost.
-- High staff turnover.
-- Untrained grant officers who were “learning by doing.”
-- Some expenses were charged to the grant “in error.”
The city said some problems were improved by “the hiring of competent staff.”
The auditors, who looked at two grants from 2006, two from 2007, two from 2008 and one from 2009, concluded: “We are concerned that the city of Atlanta may not be able to properly manage the $16.9 million it has been awarded under the 2009 Recovery Act.”
Mayor Kasim Reed, elected in 2009, was not in office when the grants were awarded.
Joya De Foor, Atlanta's chief financial officer, said, in an e-mail, "To be clear, all of the findings are prior to this administration. ... The office originally tasked with managing the grant, the Management Service Office, was disbanded and its staff were laid off. While the office has not been restored, several individuals have been hired in the police department to manage the grant compliance activities.
"Under the Reed administration, the Department of Finance now works closely with the APD and the other city departments in the compilation of documentation to support the awarded grants and to appropriately monitor each grant's recipient and sub-recipient(s).
"We are fortunate that the Justice Department has given the city the opportunity to address the eight findings of this audit. We are confident that most, if not all, of these findings can be satisfied to the satisfaction of the Justice Department."
Police spokesman Carlos Campos wrote in an e-mail that Atlanta and APD “take the responsible administration and spending of Federal grant funds seriously ... Chief [George] Turner was concerned that the Atlanta Police Department had not always employed best practices in the field of grant management.”
Consequently, Turner hired an analyst to oversee spending of grant money and the performance of those programs, Campos said.
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