QuoteThe mystery of the missing debit cards has been solved.
A year after Mayor Lenny Curry's administration reported $27,000 worth of city-funded prepaid debit cards for an employee reward program were missing, the Office of Inspector General on Tuesday revealed the cards were in a city safe the entire time.
A report issued by the office said it was a lack of oversight relating to the purchase and retention of the 975 cards by former Mayor Alvin Brown's administration that led to the confusion...
http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=548512 (http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=548512)
So Curry's administration didn't bother to look in their safes for what might be in there and then when they find the "missing" cards a year later, Curry still blames Brown's administration for the "lack of oversight" - unbelievable!
They have most likely expired or declined in value due to service fees. What a sloppy organization.
http://www.news4jax.com/news/local/jacksonville/citys-missing-gift-cards-are-accounted-for
The Inspector General found that the lack of oversight in Brown's Finance Department caused the confusion over where the cards were and how much had been purchased. $3,175 was unaccounted for, not $27,000, but apparently there were no logs and receipts. What's more, apparently most of the gift cards - totaling $59,956 - weren't even distributed to employees as intended between 2013 and 2015. The city cancelled the cards and got $52,100 back, meaning the city lost nearly $8k in fees from the mess. The city has updated the internal controls, but hopefully they don't cancel the program entirely, it was good when it was used correctly.
In fact, the $27,000 Curry's office claimed was missing also was off — it actually was just more than $3,100 in cards that initially were unaccounted for.
Employee Services provided records for when cards were pulled to disperse to employees who earned the rewards under the program started by former Mayor John Delaney.
So, how was COJ able to know when the cards were pulled and dispersed? You can't have an account and not have an account of the cards at the same time.
Here's the Inspector General's report:
http://www.coj.net/getattachment/Departments/Inspector-General/Reports/FINAL-ROI-W-ATTACHMENTS-2016-0002.pdf.aspx
To sum it up, there were two departments who handled the cards. Employee Services was in charge of purchasing the cards and distributing them to employees, but a separate department, Finance, was in charge of holding them in the meantime. The Finance Department kept sketchy logs and minimal receipts of cards brought to them and taken out. They also didn't keep them together in the safe. Employee Services did keep records of when they took cards out to distribute, but they only distributed $3,425 out of $59,956.25 total that was purchased in 2013 and 2014. As such, there was confusion over how many cards in what amounts were there, which was compounded by the fact that Finance couldn't find all the cards during either the city inventory or the IG investigation. As it turns out, the missing cards only totaled $3,175 rather than $27k, and on a physical review the IG found them in a different box in the Finance Department safe.
In all, these are signs of a very slack ship, and that's besides the fact that the city decided to buy nearly $60k of gift cards in two years, racking up nearly $8k in fees, while only distributing $3,425.
The title of this post is very misleading. Curry isn't blaming Brown. The Office of the Inspector General, which was established to provide independent oversight of local government operations, is blaming Brown. Not sure where Curry's the bad guy here. He noticed the cards were missing, overestimated the amount because there were no internal records kept by the former administration (keep in mind Vystar, who provide the cards to the city, also corroborated the higher amount originally, I believe), and moved quickly to locate and/or cancel the cards. Whether you like or hate either mayor, this sounds like good stewardship of city finances by Curry to me.
Thanks for the link Taca. I'll read it soon.
New IG pic 3 hours out. Anyone going?