Hot Potato Inventory List Gets Tossed Around Again
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 26, 2012
A straight answer from the Clerk's office regarding the inventory issues I have been covering here on Naked Conch reminds me of the maze of mangrove channels behind Mud Key. But let's cut to the chase.
One strange list (See Here) of equipment totaling over $150,000 under a heading "Need Destruction Form," keeps popping up. Granted, some of it is older equipment, but $44,203.37 is from 2008 or newer. The list seems associated with the efforts of former Inventory Clerk Mitch Hedman to reconcile inventory records and account for missing equipment. Remember these are tagged assets, all valued over $1000, and Hedman as you might recall went to the Office of the State Attorney and filed a complaint suggesting he was being forced to resign as a result of bringing County inventory issues to light. (See Here.)
First, the list showed up in a response from the Clerk's Office to a request that I made for the Health Department's inventory reports. After a go around with Health Department Director Bob Eadie, it became apparent that aside from the over $250,000 worth of equipment that Eadie cleared his books of with mass deletion requests, that this additional list was not the Health Department's.
With additional requests pending for Tech Services, and the Fire Department's inventory reports, I added the follow up questions (See Here.) of, "If not the Health Dept's, then whose equipment was on this list?" and "Why was it added into the middle of the Health Department's Reports?"
After a month of pulling teeth I was provided with the inventory reports for Tech Services, and the Fire Department. These were not end of year reports, or reconciliations of what equipment exists and what has been found, lost or is outdated. Rather, the payload costing $35 and two trees amounted to stacks of email exchanges with a variety of spreadsheets as attachments. They were essentially a lot of discussion regarding scheduling meetings and finding scattered pieces of equipment. But lo and behold, the very last email exchange in the Fire Department stack from Hedman to a Harvey Hillman contained our exact little list of $150,000 of equipment under the heading "Need Destruction Form." Ooopsie, now it's jumped from Health to Fire...just can't keep up with it. Hedman states in his email dated Sept 12, 2011, "Call me when you get this." Oddly, three days later Hedman filed his complaint with the State Attorney suggesting he was being forced to resign.
The first red flag is that Hedman, a dedicated employee felt compelled enough to file a complaint with the State Attorney for some odd reason. From my experience working with Hedman he proved himself to be a dedicated and proficient County employee who was diligent in his work duties accounting for inventory. Gleaned from all my public records request, it would appear that it was his efforts that began to bring several agencies into line and correct for their poor inventory management. To add to that assessment, in an October 14, 2010 letter to Clerk Danny Kolhage, Fire Chief James Callahan writes;
"I would like to personally apologize for the difficulties and our delinquency in completing our annual capital inventory, as well as our inability to resolve and reconcile previously noted discrepancies. I would also like to commend Mitch Hedman for his diligent patience and assistance with helping to resolve the issue."
Sounds like Hedman was a straight shooter, who was doing a good job to me. So why was he being forced to resign only days after sending our mystery list to the Fire Dept? Also, who was putting that pressure on him to resign? Hedman worked for County Clerk Danny Kolhage.
Further, why is this list being buried, and showing up in an assortment of odd places, and why I am being fed convoluted email exchanges versus concise reports detailing an annual reconciliation of inventory? Is this how the Clerk's Office maintains their inventory records? If so, we have a huge problem that could easily explain the ease with which the iPad scandal was perpetrated.
Finally, why won't the Clerk's Office respond to my direct questions as to whose inventory this represents, and what is the significance of the list of over $150,000 of equipment? On April 20th I again asked for additional clarification from Danny Kolhage and he has yet to respond. (See Here.)
As I have said before, in terms of value, this makes the iPad scandal look like a drop in the bucket, and County administrators should be jumping at the chance to offer explanations instead of intentionally confusing the issue. People only do that when they have something to hide.
Candidates Echo Common Call - Show us the Money! - Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 17, 2012
Hometown PAC put on another great event last night at Salute in Key West, providing the opportunity for candidates running for all offices to expose themselves... figuratively, thank goodness! Throughout the evening one common theme seemed to weave itself through the fabric of campaign rhetoric, and it was that of transparency.
Last night as a candidate for Clerk, I promised to work to place every County agency's line item budget online. Taxpayers deserve convenient fingertip access to see how every last penny is being spent. But I was not alone, as numerous other candidates referenced prying open budgets and providing the public access to financial documents.
This was great to see, considering the theme of this very blog Naked Conch is "Exposing the Keys, one shell at a time!" The call has to continue, and the public should be just as vocal as the candidates. This extends beyond budgets and finances, to inventory accountability, and even just being responsive to public inquiries.
The dark ages of deterring the public from gaining access to how their own resources are being allocated needs to come to an end. Administrators should not feel comfortable in charging for their own time to answer a simple public records request, such as I wrote about here when the Health Department did just that. (See Here.)
Nor should administrators feel comfortable letting public records requests languish without an explanation, as the Clerk's Office has been doing regarding providing me with inventory reports. (See Here and Here.) Especially after the County Inventory Clerk filed a complaint with the State Attorney's Office about being pressured to resign as a result of trying to expose inventory issues! (See Here.) This was before the iPad scandal erupted. Go figure, no leaders can call for the abusers to resign, but somehow the guy trying to expose the problems back in 2011 was pressured to resign.
Part of transparency is being comfortable committing to answers in writing, and not using the old, "Give me a call, let's talk," as I wrote about when the Public Defender's Office did that in response to my inquires about statements Rose Enright made before the County Commission. (See Here.) Neither candidates, nor the public, should fear the ramifications of a well connected political machine being turned against them for making simple inquiries as to the allocation of the public's resources.
Questioning why we are paying rent for waterfront property (See Left) of the Public Defender is not an attack, or mean spirited. Neither is wondering why we are expanding that rental property when staffing has not increased, and the Key West attorney case counts are tremendously lower than Upper Keys offices where there is literally empty office space. This doesn't just constitute how much money is being spent, but also how taxpayer resources are being allocated. Is it fair to Public Defender clients in Marathon that their felony attorney handles three times the caseload of that of Key West attorneys? (See Here.) To date, Public Defender Rose Enright has refused numerous offers for her to come on my show on KONK broadcasting and discuss these issues. However, she freely admits before the County Commission to gaggles of laughing approval, that she is "working on the Sylvia Murphy lounge in her office right now." With taxpayer dollars of course, I guess that is transparency of some sort.
But again, it's great to see more candidates joining me to beat the drum of transparency, let's hope it continues. We need to move into a new age of enlightenment of the public to reduce the incidence of scandals such as the recent iPad debacle. Government administrators need to know that thousands of eyes from the public are easily observing the manner with which they run their agencies. Only then will we have true accountability to the taxpayers, and you don't need to be a CPA to tally those benefits!
BREAKING NEWS - April 14, 2012
According to the Monroe County Supervisor of Elections website, School Board member Andy Griffiths has drawn two challengers to the District 2 School Board Race. This is fantastic, as we at Naked Conch have always advocated for contested races.
Howard Hubbard and Yvette Mira-Talbott have thrown their hats in the ring to challenge long time board member Andy Griffiths. We thank Howard and Yvette for giving the voters a choice. Hopefully, we will see all of them at the Hometown PAC elections forum this Monday evening, April 16 at Salute restaurant in Key West at 6PM! Hopefully we will see you there as well!
Could that be the reason we bounce from one financial crisis to another? Ya Think? - Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 10, 2012
School Superintendent Jesus Jara took his dog and pony show to the Sugarloaf School yesterday evening for the second of five presentations to discuss the current fiscal year's budget challenges. After a powerpoint presentation in which he outlined previous years' budget reductions, discussed the habit of depleting reserves over the last few years, and offered the expected solution of eliminating FORTY teachers, he then turned the discussion over to the approximately sixty people in attendance.
What ensued in this quest for suggestions from the public could only be described as searching for a needle in a haystack...blindfolded. Let me tell you, finding needles by grasping at straws makes their discovery a bit...shall we say...painful. For instance, when accused of not having to pay for health insurance, Jara was quick to respond that he pays his own, however, there are still a few individuals in the system that don't contribute at all. When asked to eliminate supplemental pay for administrators, Jara suggested that they had done so... well except in a few small instances. When asked to reduce salaries in administration, Jara suggested that even reducing the pay of the top forty-four administrators would not solve the budget dilemma.
What seemed lost in the discussion to me was a clear explanation of how exactly we are spending our money. When challenged to explain how the money spent last year grew from an approved $78 million, to an actual $83 Million, Jara's response was a bit vague and confusing. Which begged the question, why isn't the public presented with a line-item budget, which would include last year's approved, last year's actual, and this year's proposed line items? That way, thousands of eyes could pour over the details, and perhaps those members of the public wishing to contribute ideas or suggestions for cost savings, could do so with all the information in front of them. Why can't we see exactly what Superintendent Jara looks at when he develops his proposed budget?
Apparently we can, and we do.
As shocking as it may seem, what is provided to the public is all that our School Superintendent has to look at as well. There is no comprehensive, collective line item budget or financial software that is available even to our School Administrators.
A few weeks ago I had a discussion with School Board Member Rob Smith-Martin whereby he expressed his challenges to obtain financial information. Last night I asked School Board Member Andy Griffiths if he could obtain a line item budget, and he said that he could, made a gesture that it is a huge stack of paper, and suggested that it wasn't easy to obtain.
So I asked the question to Superintendent Jara, why can't the public view a line item budget online, referencing as an example the ability to possibly see which administrator was being payed supplemental pay. Jara was quick to suggest he could and would have supplemental pay posted online in the morning. But I pressed on, I wasn't looking for an isolated response to an item found as a result of pulling my bloodied hand out of the haystack, I want to easily peruse the budget and see all the needles without having to discover them by sense of touch.
Again, Jara was quick to suggest that that is all available as well, and quickly pulled up what would be used at an upcoming School Board Budget workshop. However, what he displayed was still fairly generalized categories, and I pressed him to show me from the list a few examples such as who is getting supplemental pay, and how much a specific software costs. He admitted that he couldn't but suggested that I could find the technology budget on line.
I then stated that what I really wanted to see was exactly what Jesus Jara is able to review when he makes his proposals, I don't want to be forced to hunt and peck for information in a thousand different places, some of which I may or may not know exist. That's when I was given the bombshell. That is the ONLY way our school financial information is available, even to administrators. Jara suggested there was not an existing comprehensive budget system or document, and that creating one would cost $500,000, and we simply don't have the money.
That is like saying, "Hey, there isn't a steering wheel in this car, but we can just keep pressure on this accelerator thingy and we'll get someplace." Jara ultimately admitted that the $500,000 estimated cost associated with development of a system to consolidate a comprehensive budget would come from capital funding, a funding source that wouldn't strain the general fund annual budget, but appeared to still throw his hands up in the air as if it was impractical.
As I was leaving, a couple of members of the school audit and finance committee suggested that I should keep pressing for such a solution, as it is something that has frustrated them as well.
As a candidate for Clerk of Courts, I have said that transparency is a key element of my campaign. Placing agency line item budgets on line, available to public scrutiny, is one of the ways I would strive to develop that atmosphere of transparency. While I realize the Clerk's Office has no dominion over the School system, perhaps that is something that School Administrators should consider implementing as well, especially if they are taking the dog and pony show on the road seeking public input.
Health Department Loses Equipment, Obfuscates, Evades Questions, and Spreads Untruths About Inquiries. More Questions Still Linger About Plenty of Missing County Equipment.
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - April 3, 2012
Overview: After having learned that the County Inventory Clerk filed a complaint in Sept 2011 with the Office of the State Attorney, citing being pressured to resign over finding $250,000 in missing equipment at the Health Department, I initiated an inquiry to find out more. I wrote about it here on Naked Conch, and as well in KONK Life newspaper.
Ultimately what transpired was that as a result of my inquiries, I seemed to have alienated Bob Eadie, the Director of the Monroe County Health Department, whereby he eventually suggested that my assertions and line of questioning was "false and without foundation." I stand by every word I wrote, and support every valid question with documentation contained below. Mr. Eadie then went on Guy deBoer's show and made comments that were patently false and misleading, to which I respond throughout the five video segments below recorded on my show on the KONK Broadcasting Network which aired on March 30.
Bottom Line: In this day of countless scandals, any public agency needs to strive to be as transparent as possible and responsive to the public, especially if they have a repetitively problematic track record.
The facts are this:
The Inventory Clerk for Monroe County did file a complaint with the Office of the State Attorney in Sept 2011 suggesting he was being pressured to resign as a result of "the Health Department is short of $250K of missing computers." That complaint can be viewed here.
I did receive a document from the Clerk's office as a result of a public records request that contained some very questionable items. (Full document here.) This document contained a letter (Found here.) from Mr. Eadie to the Clerk's Office in 2009 explaining the improper disposal of over $227,000 of equipment, along with an accompanying list of deletion requests (Found here.) signed by Mr. Eadie to account for the missing inventory and zero the books. While I have admitted that most of that list looks obsolete, remember that that is at the time of it being administratively accounted for as missing with the deletion requests. No one knows when it went missing. In addition, the list does contain some items from 2006.
In his 2009 letter, Mr. Eadie assures the Clerk's Office that "We have adopted procedures that will prevent the disposition on public assets without proper authorization."
The very next year, in an email exchange (Found here.) between the Health Department's Andrew Bulla, and the Inventory Clerk Mitch Hedman, Bulla writes that "the majority of the MC tagged assets have not been found." Also, at the very top of that page, Mary Vanden Brook seems to have made an odd statement of "One suggestion: add the present value as zero or close to it."
Other unusual items contained within the Clerk's response were, a 2010 list of $29K of items "missing 2 years," (Found here.) and a very long list over countless pages of valuable inventory under a heading of "Need Destruction Form." (Found here.) This list is HUGE!
I found all of this to be very unusual, so I made a Public Records Request (Found here.) of the Health Department for the following;
1 - The Monroe County Health Department's copy of the last three years of Monroe County Inventory Reports for the Monroe County Health Department as prepared by Mitch Hedman, or any record reflecting an accounting of Monroe County Inventory of equipment or assets assigned to the Health Department maintained b or provided to your agency for the last three years.
2 - Any email exchange between Andrew Bulla, Mary Vanden Brook, Brian Blair, Mitch Hedman and/or yourself during the month of July 2010 that contained the words "Missing MCHD Assets" in the subject line.
3 - Any record maintained by the Health Department that reflects or discusses missing County assets or
inventory, and/or a copy of any policy or procedure developed by the Health department to track Monroe County Assets.
Health Department Administrative Director Mary Vanden Brook responded by offering to provide a response to the Public Records request at a cost of over $400 including charges for her time as well as Mr. Eadie's time. (The entire email exchange can be found here.) Throughout the email exchange you can read that along with objecting to the cost of providing a response, in an effort to be more concise, I also offer more detailed options such as;
"How much would it cost for a copy of the last three years of County inventory records that your office may have?"
"it would be nice to view the entire email conversation that is only partially copied in the PRR from the Clerk, where Andrew Bulla suggests he can't find the majority of tagged assets"
"It would also be nice to review any policy you implemented as a result of your letter of 2009"
Mr. Eadie did provide me a copy of another deletion request from July of 2010 for approximately $29K worth of equipment filed only after it went missing that seems to correlate with the "missing 2 years" list. This list did however contain over $10,000 of relatively new equipment that was misplaced and that to my knowledge was never reported to the police, nor covered by insurance.
After failing to respond to my more simplified requests, calling me irresponsible, suggesting my accusation had no basis in fact, Mr. Eadie then became irate after my article discussing the above topic was published in KONK Life. Guy deBoer gave Mr. Eadie the opportunity to come on his show.
On this show, Mr. Eadie states the following untruths;
Untruth #1- He had never heard of any inventory issues until I brought them to his attention. FACT: His signature is on over $227,000 of deletion requests for equipment that was missing and/or improperly disposed. He also had provided me with an ADDITIONAL list of $29K of missing equipment with Mary Vanden Brooks name on it.
Untruth #2- My public records request was for THREE YEARS of emails. FACT: It was originally for a search of only one month, between specific people, with a VERY defined subject line. I revised it to be for ONLY ONE particular email exchange.
Untruth #3 - He would be willing to sit down and let me revise my request and make it more specific. FACT: SEE ABOVE. I already had, and he has yet to respond.
This coming from a guy who accused me of being without foundation.
Ultimately after all of his obfuscation he did provide me one tidbit of information that was helpful. Apparently the questionable inventory BEYOND the missing $257,000 with his or Ms. Vanden Brook's signature, found listed in the Clerk's response on pages 14 and 15 as part of his inventory report under the heading "Need Destruction Form" was in fact not his equipment.
That begs the question, then whose equipment is all that? To that end, I had already submitted a Public Records Request to the Clerk's Office for the inventory reports from the Fire Department, and the IT Department on March 12. To follow up, I also sent a follow up to the Clerk's Office on March 24 to find out more. (Found here.) As of today, there has been no response whatsoever. And on it goes....
In Conclusion: In light of all the scandals, and the fact the Inventory Clerk was compelled to file a complaint with the State Attorney last September, our public officials should be jumping at the opportunity to be as transparent as possible, not putting up road blocks, and spewing untruths about people making inquiries. Enjoy the show below including Mr. Eadie's appearance on Guy deBoer's show!
Just the facts, mam, just the facts!
Part 1 - An Overview of the Issues
Part 2 - Let's Charge over $400 to provide you with a response to your public records request...including Bob Eadie's and Mary Vanden Brook's time...seriously?
Part 3 - Gardi adjusts his requests, Eadie sites an email that he doesn't provide, and a phone call that no one has a copy of as his "facts," and basis of his defense.
Part 4 - Bob Eadie appears on Guy deBoer's show....now it gets interesting. Suggests he never heard of any issues, ignoring his signature on over $227,000 of inventory deletion requests for missing equipment he signed years before and an additional $29K list he provided to Gardi. Let's check facts, shall we Mr. Eadie...
Part 5 - Eadie suggests Gardi asks for "THREE YEARS OF EMAILS!" Absolutely 100% untrue, coming from a guy who has just accused Gardi of being without foundation!
