UPDATE See highlight below.
Lake Worth took a beating during Wilma, ranked among the top five costly hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic which began on October 26, 2005. The eye of the storm actually crossed Lake Worth. Our loss was $12 million. Overall, the hurricane claimed 62 lives and damage was estimated at $29.1 billion. Wilma is ranked among the top five most costly hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic and the fifth costliest storm in United States history but it was Frances in 2004 that destroyed our Lake Worth Pier.
Back then, the City was put on notice by our external auditors that there were accounting errors with the FEMA money that we got from Frances during city manager Paul Boyer's administration. One of the things you must do is back up the receivables from FEMA with receipts. Boyer told us that the city can not produce the receipts and FEMA wants us to reimburse them $1.2 million.
Now Lake Worth is taking another beating-- and according to the Post, FEMA wants us to repay $500,000 because of lack of documentation after Wilma. We can't prove one-half million in expenses. We don't learn lessons well and sometimes we can't even fire those who are incompetent because of Union protection. The report by the Inspector General, Office of Homeland Security, says that we owe FEMA $7.7 million.
We had filed a claim with FEMA and now the agency says, we, once again, have shoddy bookwork. We spent the money on disaster recovery but we just can't prove it...sort of like the sewer fiasco that cost us $10 million for shoddy paperwork. There was a lot of shoddy stuff going on back in those days. Our savings disappeared too along with the millions in our beach fund. The assistant city manager, Laura Hannah, got a $50,000 raise.
Then after Stanton was hired in 2009, she changed out the Finance Department...got rid of the past problems (staff) that had cost us millions and hired a competent director, Steven Carr.
Now we know why the commission has been asked to delay the $500,000 payment of the loan to ourselves on the casino.
Read the PBPost article.
Expect for Mark Easton to blame it on the past commission and this present dais to blame it on them as well. Talk about revisionist history. They don't want to remember facts; it's more fun to re-write it then to do research on it--much easier in their scheme of things.
ReplyDeleteLynn, take a look at this report!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the status on this???
http://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/GrantReports/2013/OIG_DA-13-04_Nov12.pdf
Thanks for this link--I updated the blog reflecting this.
ReplyDeleteRead the report. More than shoddy paperwork took place. This involves staff and commissions from 2005 thru the present. When was the public, who by the way will foot the bill, going to be told.
ReplyDeleteI can't see where this involved commissions or staff through the present. The majority of the non-compliance was with the electric utility atg the time, nearly
ReplyDelete$7 million of it.
It gets worse - just read a 2nd report on facebook.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/GrantReports/2013/OIG_DA-13-08_Dec12.pdf
Lynn, read the article that anonymous at 2:55 posted. It's not just Wilma anymore.
ReplyDeleteINSANE
They need to put all those people running the city back then in jail, they should be held responsible, lock them up and fine them, this is unfair and unacceptable to the citizens, hold the ones who did this responsible, put them in jail.
ReplyDeleteOne huge problem we have today with our CM and elected officials is that they do not listen and are not responsive to us at all. You write to get help or support and the CM and leaders do not write back or ignore you or just are not responsive, all of this just is not a surprise as our leaders from before and now are completely ineffective. The non-responsiveness is what drives me crazy, the CM, Capt. Silva, and mayor are all hugely guilty of this.
ReplyDeleteNow that the public is aware I predict the commission and staff will say they have been on top of it. This means they are appealing owing near 8 million. The judgement from OIG came down 7 months ago. Talk about transparency and public right to know. They knew this was on the horizon in 2009. OIG demanded documentation in 2011 and nothing was done. I believe the sitting commissioners think the appeal will take years, and they will be out of office like the commissions from 2008 and forward, therefore untouchable.
ReplyDelete