Augusta Commission votes to move forward on parks and rec audit
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Augusta Commission on Tuesday decided to move forward on an audit of the city’s troubled Parks and Recreation Department.
Discussion of an audit has been under discussion for about a year after the departure of Maurice McDowell as director of the department.
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But even the process of choosing a firm to perform the audit sent up some red flags for some.
Commissioners approved an audit at the committee level in May 2024, trying to clean the slate after McDowell was forced out of the position after a city employee claimed he’d harassed her. They even selected UHY Advisors Mid-Atlantic to conduct the audit.
But the circumstances of that selection got some people’s spidey senses tingling.
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UHY wasn’t the initial choice, and was thought not to have even made the deadline with its bid. Then with a re-examination of the matter, some city officials said UHY had actually made the deadline, but UPS couldn’t deliver the bid on time because the city office had been closed. And then when the bid was opened, it turned out to be half what the previous lowest bid had been.
But when city leaders changed their vote to pick UHY, many questions were raised.
City leaders decided to start the process over, and that’s what brought us to Tuesday’s vote – and UHY was chosen once again.
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It’s not unusual for the city to move at a glacial pace, especially when it comes to this department.
After McDowell’s exit, it took only weeks to narrow to field of successors to 16. But it took six more months to whittle down the list to a finalist.
When they discussed an audit a year ago, commissioners said they were interested in looking at Riverwalk expenditures, park expenditures, hotel stays with locations by employees, an information technology search to check if any documents were deleted, community center dollars and more.
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Commissioners also tossed around the idea of tacking on audits for other issues they came across, like a new furniture request for a little more than $150,000 for the new Henry Brigham Center.
Since then, concerns have been raised about lack of progress on projects that received grant money years ago.
Those include May, Dyess and Boykin Road parks. With inflation and potentially tariffs eating away at spending power, the more than $10 million allocation for the three facilities won’t likely go as far as it once would have.
Another recent concern is the condition of city parks in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
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