Augusta Parks and Rec audit plans leave lingering bid questions

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - After weeks of talking about which company should perform a planned audit on the parks and recreation department, there’s still no decision after Tuesday’s Augusta Commission meeting.

The money discussion drew a heated discussion once again during the meeting.

Commissioners voted Tuesday to send the issue back to the finance committee – after about 35 minutes of debate.

At the committee meeting last week, commissioners hurled questions at the city’s procurement director.

There are lingering questions about how and when UHY Advisors Mid-Atlantic was chosen by the city procurement department.

Before UHY was picked, Marcum LLP had been awarded the bid.

City Interim Takiyah Douse says the UHY bid was delivered by UPS on May 7 at 8:02 a.m., before the procurement department opened.

UPS took the package back to its warehouse and delivered it the next day on May 8.

The evaluation committee was not aware of the UHY bid, although it met that same day to discuss which company to pick.

The committee met again May 10, and ultimately picked UHY as the winner of the bid.

UHY’s bid was around half the cost of Marcum LLP’s cost.

“There were some discrepancies on whether UPS, FedEx – there’s discrepancies on the fact that they wouldn’t let us see the timestamp of when the bid arrived,” Commissioner Sean Frantom said.

“We approved that we were going to do this. We’re not going to just approve a bid that was half with the circumstances that I just mentioned today, so hopefully we can approve the first bid that was brought before us.”

Several commissioners asked to see timestamps of when the bid was accepted – but were denied.

“We keep talking about unity and we keep talking about doing things right up here, but we’re arguing about a bid process that went through that went through the proper process that was right, and now we want to cancel both and go back out,” Commissioner Jordan Johnson said. “Everyone who says it wasn’t done right can’t even prove how it was done wrong.”

Mayor pro-tem Brandon Garrett argues commissioners were not allowed to see the details of when that bid was accepted.

The city’s attorney stated the commission could be getting too involved with the procurement process.

It’s the ’s job on the evaluation committee to voice their concerns.

Also, if the commission decides to go with a firm not awarded the bid by procurement, the city could be open to a legal risk.

This process all started when commissioners voted April 2 to move forward on an audit into nine different areas within the department, going back three years.

The list of areas to check includes:

• Lake Olmstead details on expenditures and ledger codes.
• All community centers, list of groups and the dollar amount taken in with each group.
• Riverwalk expenditures from all areas including the additional $150,000 for the Eighth Street bulkhead.
• All vendor expenditures and the jobs they performed, including consultants, lawn services, etc.
• All park expenditures broken down by the park with the ledger codes, including Fleming Park.
• All hotel stays with locations by all employees in the department.
• Candle Light Jazz money totals for each date and how the money was collected and used.
• Information technology department review of any deleted files for the department that are personnel- or financial-related.
• Review all contracts of $25,000 or less for the department head’s signature on the document. Plus, bring back recommendations of what can be automated vs. paper.

When Maurice McDowell resigned as parks and recreation director, Augusta leaders said they wanted to check every corner of a department riddled with internal and external investigations before the next director stepped in.

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