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Story Archives: Audit reveals ethics violations, mismanagement; Marx calls for state review


Audit reveals ethics violations, mismanagement; Marx calls for state review
by Scott Rogers - posted Friday, November 14th, 2008 @ 12:42 pmE-mail Story E-mail Story | Print Story Print Story 
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor should look into some of the findings from the city of Monroe's 2007-08 fiscal year audit, according to one city council member.

Councilman Jay Marx suggested the city be proactive in addressing the findings from the audit, which was conducted by Luffey, Huffman, Ragsdale & Soignier, a local certified public accountanting firm.

Francis Huffman told the city council Thursday during its regular meeting that there were nine findings related to city operations. Seven of those nine findings dealt with operations at Monroe Civic Center.

Of the nine findings, Marx said there was one that particularly concerned him. It dealt with compensatory time requested by three employees with the city's community affairs department. He suggested the Legislative Auditor's office should review the matter.

That issue was first reported by The Ouachita Citizen and KNOE 8 news following a joint investigation with KNOE and The Ouachita Citizen.

Three employees with the city's community affairs department requested more than $7,000 for hours they claimed they worked during the planning and execution of DeltaFest.

According to the audit, on Sept. 12, 2007, Johnny Riley, director of community affairs, "approved payment for 120 comp time hours to three employees under the premise that they were denied time off due to the requirements of their jobs."

Riley recently resigned as community affairs director to take a job with the state. In his new position, Riley will serve as deputy director of emerging workforce for the Office of Workforce Development. He will begin his new job Dec. 1.

Payment was made Nov. 2, 2007, to the three employees who requested compensatory time. However, no time was deducted from the employee's comp time records to reflect payments, the audit said.

"In a related matter, one of the employees received payment for comp time taken on at least two days which were also city holidays," the audit stated.

According to the audit, those actions could be "construed as falsifying public records, payroll fraud and/or malfeasance in office."

Following Huffman's presentation, Marx offered his take on the compensatory time flap.

"I don't necessarily find findings as a bad thing," Marx said. "It's my experience that the train falls of the tracks, and the issue of falling off the tracks is immaterial to putting the train back on the tracks."

"That's where findings can be valuable," he said.

"There were three (findings) that I looked at, and one in particular concerns me," Marx continued. "We should be proactive with this and call the Legislative Auditor and ask him to come up here and review this."

Other findings involving Monroe Civic Center included an issue of a discrepancy with ticket stub counts for the Bayou Black Open Rodeo event, which was held Aug. 25, 2007. Some 1,101 more people attended the event "than tickets sold or complimentary tickets available per the Ticketmaster audit report," according to the audit.

Also, revenue reports from concession sales during a recent event at Monroe Civic Center indicated a $1,000 shortage between sales and amounts deposited.

Another finding involved the Oct. 17, 2007, Lil' Wayne concert, which resulted in a net loss of $39,000. The bill remains unpaid.

Proper documentation was not issued by the city to the artist, according to the audit.

That "failure to obtain a signed contract for which the city is liable for performance demonstrates a lack of controls, which could result in numerous liabilities and possible losses to the city," the audit said. The city currently is engaged in a lawsuit against Solo Entertainment, the promoter of the event.

Also, the audit reported an ethics violation in which the city rented the Monroe Civic Center to "an employee for the purpose of revenue producing activities." The city also rented the Civic Center to a company owned by an employee for the same purpose.

Another ethics violation involved gifts from a vendor. One vendor doing business with the city gave gift certificates to some employees of the city, according to the audit.
Mayor Jamie Mayo said the city is working to immediately address the findings the audit unveiled to prevent them from happening again.


The 2007-08 fiscal year audit also showed the city has another budget surplus.
For the fourth consecutive year, the city's annual audit will show a budget surplus. This year, the amount of that surplus is $157,995.
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