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MAYOR: PARKS BUDGET SCRUTINY?

By AmyJo Brown/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, March 20, 2008 8:41 AM CDT

Alleging mismanagement of the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Department, Mayor Carl A. Redus Jr. has put the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission — and the way it has monitored the department’s spending — under the microscope.

He said he has discovered problems with the department’s finances, including lack of contracts for rentals of Saracen Landing, inaccurate accounting for employees’ overtime work and payments to employees for work that should be bid out to private contractors.

He said he and his staff discovered the discrepancies while investigating why the department could not fund $23,877 for raises for its employees out of the department’s $846,853 budget.

Redus cut the money earmarked for the raises just before the Pine Bluff City Council approved its budget in December. Since then, he has been embroiled in an argument with Third Ward Alderman Derwood Smith, who has said he did not realize the money was cut from the budget he approved. Smith, as chairman of the Council’s Public Works Committee, has repeatedly tried to pass legislation returning the money to the parks department.

On Monday, after Smith tried again to convince his colleagues the $23,877 should be restored, Redus told them they needed to be cautious about giving more money to the parks department.

“There are dollars in (their) budget,” Redus said. “The commission needs to explain to us where the funds have gone.”

In meetings held over the past month between parks commissioners and the mayor, commissioners have agreed, informally, to correct the accounting problems.

In one instance, parks employees were being paid $110 each time they worked after-hours to clean a parks’ building after an event. One employee made an additional $11,330 last year out of about $18,000 that was paid in total for such cleaning, according to information provided by Angela Parker, the parks director.

James Watts, the parks maintenance supervisor, said employees have been paid to clean buildings for years.

“It was a way for everybody to make a little extra money,” he said.

But state law requires the city to bid out contract work, if the contract is for more than $500, according to Carol Billings, the city attorney. She said the individual contracts with the employees could be seen as circumventing the law.

The city must also adopt an ordinance permitting the department to contract with the employees, she said.

In addition, Redus said that regardless of whether cleaning was needed after an event, the $100 deposit was being returned to those who rented the buildings.

Chris Castoro, who is heading the commission’s recently formed finance committee, said the deposit has been required only for replacing damaged property.

“We do not at this point require that the facility be left clean,” he said.

However, he said he agreed with Redus.

“We’re paying too much to get it cleaned,” he said.

As for contracts not always being signed for the rental of the parks’ facilities, Castoro said that sometimes, with good customers, you do things on a handshake. He said there was still a paper trail, in the form of the checks being cashed.

“What we don’t have is a signed contract,” he said. “I think that’s probably a slap on the wrist offense.”

Castoro, along with three other commissioners who attended the meeting with the mayor in early March, said his finance committee will look into payroll discrepancies that Redus also pointed out. One employee, for example, is exempt, but has been paid overtime pay, Redus said. The commission will also look into whether one of the part-time employees should continue to be employed because she is married to a full-time employee in the department. City hiring policies prohibit members of the immediate family from working within the same department.

In the meantime, employees at the parks department said they are exploring filing a lawsuit alleging job discrimination because they have yet to receive their promised raises. The money was planned to go to eight employees, ranging from a $400 increase for one to more than $8,000 for another.

Watts said morale in his department is in terrible shape.

“This has been going on for several months now. It just don’t seem like there’s an end to it,” he said.

At the council meeting Monday, aldermen said they were hesitant to take sides over the issue, and hesitant to believe the mayor’s allegations.

“There’s something wrong,” said Third Ward Alderman Bill Brumett. “There’s something personal going on.”

First Ward Alderman Irene Holcomb said she thought the city might need an arbitrator.

Redus, for his part, said he has scrutinized every department’s budget, not just the parks department. He told commissioners, when he met with them, that they didn’t appear to be doing the proper checks and balances on the department.

“There is no way we as a council can monitor spending within this commission at this point in time,” he said.

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