JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – New findings from an anticipated Jacksonville Inspector General Report show wasteful expenditure of government funds.
The investigation released Tuesday evening revealed that a significant portion of the funds, loaded onto Jacksonville housing tenant utility reimbursement payment cards was spent on non-utility expenses.
The agency and its CEO Dwayne Alexander have been under scrutiny and there have even been calls for him to resign, over the handling of funds.
A 20-page report outlines how the agency distributed federal money that was supposed to pay utility bills and recommends the money now be paid to the utilities directly or restrict card usage.
The investigation found that nearly $2 million was loaded onto utility reimbursement payment cards and less than $270,000 of the funds were spent on utilities. The issued debit card for payment of utilities also gave the ability to use an ATM cash option.
News4JAX Political Analyst Rick Mullaney previously worked in the city as general counsel and chief of staff.
“Based on this report two significant concerns, one is a failure of process and procedure and how you’re going to make these payments, $2 million worth. And according to the report, $171.7 million of it was not going where it was intended. The second failure is accountability, and not recognizing that this money wasn’t going where it was supposed to go,” Mullaney said.
The report also contains a response from Alexander.
“One hundred percent of all funding that was obligated to each family as required by the federal government was issued. One hundred percent of the fund went to families that qualify for utility reimbursement payments. There is no misuse of funds or waste of HUD Fund,” Alexander said.
“If you’re looking at the debit cards, and how they were issued, and what they were supposed to pay for. He was clear that those debit cards were intended to pay utilities. And it was easy with technology to make it in your procedure so that those debit cards would be used for utilities” Mullaney said.
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A JHA Operations Compliance Department Manager told investigators that, “Neither federal regulation nor agency policy requires a family to apply [Utility Reimbursement Payments] toward utilities; therefore, the money can be spent at the family’s discretion. However, the issued debit cards are intended to be used for utilities.”
JHA defines utilities as water, electricity, gas, heating, refrigeration, cooking fuels, trash collection and sewage charges.
Read the entire report here.