Live-tweeting the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee
First up is a request to audit the Belle Glade Housing Authority. We will not cover this part of the hearing.
Rep. Chuck Clemons is up, requesting a comprehensive audit of the City of Gainesville.
Clemons thanks Poe and Feldman for their statements that the doors and books are open for inspection.
Former City Auditor Carlos Holt is testifying. He says a "parade of citizens" have asked him to help. He is there at his own expense. He says Poe and Feldman's letters minimize problems that have been found.
Poe's letter says there were no significant findings in the external audit, but Holt says the audit found three findings of material weakness in financial controls.
Holt says the city blames a staff shortage, but he says that is no excuse for making entries incorrectly. "You can't carry on as a government entity with that many accounts mis-stated."
Holt says the city keeps rolling over debt. Every transaction incurs a cost and pushes the debt down the road. 'Eventually the citizens of Gainesville will suffer due to insolvency.'
Representative Caruso asks whether there have been any improprieties in cash funds. Holt says he has been asked to testify in the "Brazilian butt lift" case, in which an employee charged $93k in personal expenses to a credit card without proper approval.
The city found that too many people had access to cash at RTS. The city couldn't prove that anything was stolen, but there were significant irregularities in how the cash was managed.
Revenues at RTS had gone down but started going up while they were doing the audit.
City still has an Interim Finance Director, no grants director, problems at Reichert House have been reported to DOJ. Holt was criticized for auditing Reichert House; problems were minimized. RH does good work, but the books have to be kept properly.
Brian O'Brien thanks Holt for appearing. O'Brien attends many city meetings and decided to review the city audit. He has found "enormous" inconsistencies. Mayor Poe tried to block him from getting a copy of the Purvis Gray audit.
O'Brien: "They have an enormous problem in Gainesville."
Clemons says this is not about specific improprieties but about public trust. "Your yes vote today... will clear the air in the city of Gainesville." It will either show that everything is fine or point the way toward solving any problems that are found.
Representative LaMarca says he knows Feldman and hopes Feldman will help sort this out.
Rep. Caruso moves that the state do an audit, with the Auditor General's office determining the scope of the audit. He says this will benefit the new City Manager by determining what happened under which administration.
Sorry, Senator Baxley said the part about the new City Manager.
Baxley asked if the rest of the legislative delegation was aware of this and supported it. Clemons said it didn't come up at the legislative delegation meeting.
Motion passes unanimously.
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