A.G. Gancarski
Jacksonville Inspector General Thomas Cline has been pilloried by members of Jacksonville’s City Council for amorphous reportage of results in recent months.
His year-end report seeks to change that impression.
Cline offers “investigation highlights,” which include two reports of his division recommending 11 corrective actions.
Specifically noted: the office’s efforts in the Access to Capital program.
“The OIG (Office of Inspector General) received a complaint alleging that the $1.2 million loan pool from the City of Jacksonville’s, Jacksonville Small Emerging Business Access to Capital Program was missing and/or unaccounted for. This allegation was substantiated in part in that our investigation determined that the program had effectively gone dormant in July 2012, however, the loan pool (remaining funds totaling $932,032.65) had been returned to the City of Jacksonville during the months of July and August 2014. The funds had been sitting sedentary in the City of Jacksonville’s ‘unidentified remittance liability account’ since that time,” Cline writes.
Cline also writes about his office’s work with Office of Public Parking, which seems to have been Naughty by Nature.
“The OIG received a complaint alleging that the (now former) Public Parking Officer used his position to provide free parking in the Duval Street Main Library garage for a community wedding event held at Hemming Park in January 2015. This allegation was unsubstantiated,” Cline writes, yet “during the investigation four issues were identified which included failure of the OPP to bill Everbank Center for parking usage at the Water Street Garage from September 2014 through March 2015; OPP had not followed established procedures related to placing special event rates into effect; that billing and collection of parking revenues were inconsistent and not in compliance with the City of Jacksonville’s standard operating procedures, and lacked internal controls to prevent fraud, waste and/or abuse; and that Rental Car agencies’ citation fees and penalty as far back as November 2013 had not been processed.”
Clearly, the OIG was not down with OPP.
“As a result of this investigation, OIG recommended eleven corrective actions. At the close of FY 2015, four corrective actions were implemented and/or addressed by Office of Public Parking, and the remaining seven corrective actions were in progress.”
Identified Costs included $45,164.70 of unbilled parking revenue.
The OIG office dealt with other issues as well.
“A breach of confidentiality of employee information resulted in a three-day suspension of a city employee,” Cline writes, adding that “internal procedures relating to the employee separation process were enhanced. Additionally, the employee separation process internal policy was redistributed and refresher training was given to Employee Services Department staff in order to ensure the timely out-processing of employees as it relates to separation and continued payment of salary after an employee has left employment with the City.”
Going forward, the OIG seeks to add a contract specialist, and also work on its community outreach; currently, the office is preparing a template for presentations to interested community groups.
