JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The CEO of the Jacksonville Housing Authority (JHA) said there’s a lot more to the city investigation released on Tuesday that revealed the agency wasted more than a million dollars of federal funds.
The city’s Inspector General’s Office found that of nearly $2 million set aside to help pay tenants utility bills just over 13% was spent on that by recipients.
MORE: City investigation found JHA gave tenants $2M to spend on utilities but only 13% was spent on that
“I think that the question was justifiable and most definitely we can always look into bettering our operations,” JHA CEO Dwayne Alexander told News4JAX on Wednesday.
Before the report was even released, some were calling for Alexander to step down. He said he has no plans to resign.
Alexander emphasized that the funds in question were reimbursements. They’re intended to cover utility costs that were already paid for, which is why most of it was not spent on utilities.
Alexander said he has no problem with the report calling it a “wasteful expenditure of government funds.”
“But the bottom line is, we do make sure that we issue 100% of the funds to all the qualified people, we certify everyone on our program on an annual basis. So the distribution that they receive is the distribution they should have,” he said.
Alexander explained the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has no requirements on how families can use reimbursement payments. JHA has been issuing payments through debit cards for the last decade, since 2012.
The 20-page report recommends the money be paid to utility companies directly or that the agency restrict card usage, something Alexander said he’s open to exploring but wrote in his response to the Inspector General that it would be an “administrative burden” to require payment directly to JEA.
“In terms of continuing what we’re doing, we will consider looking into other options,” he said.
Alexander also points to the fact that it’s a violation for tenants not to pay their utilities. Only four of 11,000 families facing program violations in the last year were for no power.
So why was an investigation warranted? News4JAX asked Alexander if the investigation could have been prompted to force him to step down from JHA.
“I really can’t comment on that,” he said. “But I think that a lot of the attention has been a distraction for the agency. We do have deals that we close on next month, which will be in excess of 40-plus million at closing.”
The deals he’s talking about have to do with buying, renovating and building more low-income housing in Jacksonville, something Alexander said he’s focusing all his energy on.
At Hogan Creek Towers, $19 million was spent on renovations last year to help seniors who need affordable housing.
There’s a huge demand for low-income units with close to 100,000 people on a waitlist for help in the city. However, many have complained to News4JAX about the wait times and the lack of responsiveness from JHA staff.
“So we do have a system that you can go on and look at your status. We use Rent Cafe, which is a computer-based system that you can go in and look at your status at any given time. Folks, we do get a lot of phone calls, we have tons of phone calls that we receive every day,” Alexander said. “We are working extremely hard at the Jacksonville Housing Authority and we’re trying to move forward to acquire more units.”
Despite questions about his abilities, Alexander was offered a 6-month contract extension and a $20,000 performance bonus Monday. News4JAX asked if he’s accepted that offer but he only said that he’s grateful for it.