Did I read the review correctly? If so,:
Someone pinch me because I still think I'm dreaming. This city is squandering millions when there are people struggling to get by and make ends meet. It is not whether or not it was done intentionally it is disheartening to know it may be happening at all. Do these city officials and contractors realize they make more in one month than some people make in a whole year? Okay they are probably at the level where they see millions in their parachute packages overall so it's no big deal. However, do they realize they serve a citizenry where some people won't see a million in a lifetime? Has HRT looked outside its window to see how many people are homeless just around their location alone in the early mornings?
Mismanagement: they apparently had no one at the city who was tasked with oversight for the light rail project. Effective leadership would have demanded better controls over the project, budget, and costs from the beginning. The review of the project even makes mention of redundancy. Okay it is not enough to screw up overpaying for stuff once but you go and do it twice, maybe three times? Really? Did they really have consultants being paid for the same services HRT staff or other consultants were tasked with providing? No open and full disclosure of the entire project to comfort citizen concerns. Once the project was looking to run over budget even stronger controls should have been enacted. It seems very suspect high ranking IT positions would come from a local city to HRT during a project of this magnitude. Are there any conflict of interests on this project? Contractors rather than employees to distill all questions about conflicts of interest?
Miscalculations: my guess would be the city was presented with pivot reports which were correct originally but as items were added to the pivot table reports they were not updated to include the new rows which were added to the detail for the reports. Did anyone check the row totals, column totals, and grand totals on each report when presented? Additionally if the grand totals for the new report opening balances were not the same as the closing balances for the previous reports would that not raise a red flag? Okay let's attribute it to maybe the city being use to receiving reports from a more reliable system and these type issues are unimaginable. However, when someone raises a concern in regards to a variance amounting to the millions, personally, I want to see a reconciliation between the bank statements and the reports. Between the news report and the review I think I saw mention of a variance in the millions. Over a million in cost overruns? Oh yea, show me the money. I'd start treating the presenters like my ex-husband at that point, show me the money I don't want to "HEAR" nothing you have to say.
Misappropriations: items were charged to categories incorrectly? Issues with the line items and the bottom line are you freaking kidding me? If you're going to screw something up please by all means err on the side of favor. It would be my guess the city also paid out more money than they agreed to based on percent complete and cost overruns ahead of schedule. But when you're talking about millions the interest on any misappropriations of that sort would probably equate to being nominal.
In my opinion having the person head of IT and Accounting and other processes critical to the light rail process as one in the same I think is a huge mistake with any organization. Just put the cookie jar in the babies lap why don't you? Even on an interim basis what could be scarier? Better yet leave the diaper off a baby who has no control over his faculties and watch the mess that's made requiring more clean up. When you have improprieties of this magnitude you want to spread the love around. I would be curious to see him provide a statement detailing or defending the operations of IT, Accounting, and all the other departments awarded by HRT? For internal control purposes someone in a position of where there is opportunity for collusion should be required to take a two week vacation off site and not have access to any of the existing systems or employees from any remote location which I don't see mentioned in the review. Internal control issue?
It appears a Comptroller/CPA would be tasked with heading up the Accounting Department especially during a time when there is so much going on and the internal controls which need to be put in place for accounting. Not knowing any better I would say it would give him the opportunity to have complete access to the general ledger, emails, backup tapes, funding receipts, disbursements, record collections, archives, everything that has the potential to white wash a thorough reconciliation. I just don't understand how an agency that has gone through so much can put so much trust in one person.
In fact with the review they received I would place all the senior management staff on a paid leave of absence and call in neutral parties until everything is reconciled. If it true, why is one person now in charge of all the processes attributing to this project going south at HRT?
The city needs to press hard for change. The review focuses too much on the bus fare collections and not enough on the millions for light rail. A schedule was provided in detail for fare collections by the day, why wasn't a similar schedule provided for the light rail project for fund receipts, collections, and disbursements?
Do they realize it appears the fare collection issue seems to have been used as a distraction to take the lime light off the real issues with the light rail project? My summation (which doesn't mean a thing) would be by the time they spend a whole lot of time on the fare collection issue which seemed to have surfaced in the 11th hour of them trying to oust Townes it provided reason and opportunity and the desired effect to outrage citizens. Well it served as a decoy and then we began to hear accounts of variances and uncertainty with the light rail figures as previously reported.
Personally, I don't trust Dumb Systems (DS), Jive Data (JD), and Haphazard Controls (HC). It is only a matter of time before the stuff hits the fans. You can remove a lot of variables and hope you've covered your tracks. However, you cannot wipe clean the human factor. Well I almost propose the old cliche the perfect crime is the one committed where no one else knows about may end up surfacing the way things look. All the pieces to this equation will work themselves out. Fortunately this is happening during a time of the year when people have a whole lot of free time anyways and with over a hundred comments they are going to get their message posted.
I really hope greed has not gotten the best of anyone. The heat is on and I don't think the citizens are going to throw ice on it to cool it down. My prediction is no more DS, JD, and HC once this mess is finally cleared up. I think I need to learn to play chess. Like with this situation I don't how to play but apparently it is a game worth learning to determine who will be the victor.
To God be the Glory!
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