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A recent audit has revealed yet another legacy gift from the Stoney administration in the city’s Non-Departmental budget grant funding to charities. The cause reads virtually the same as the failure of the water plant last month: “Without adequate staffing, training, monitoring, and oversight, the city is exposed to significant risks, including fraudulent use of grant funds,” the audit report reads. It found the grant distribution was littered with sloppy or no standards or criteria, favoritism in awards (or lack thereof), missing records and conflict-of-interest forms, and no consequences for missing deadlines or failure to live up to the terms of the funding agreements.
When City Hall starts looking like Tammany Hall, you know there is a big problem. The audit is the latest reveal that the cesspool of corruption Doug Wilder warned us about twenty years ago has returned. The question is, will anyone want to drain it or clean it up?
The city’s Non-Departmental budget is divided into two parts. The organizational subsidies provide funding for GRTC, Richmond Region Tourism, Richmond Ambulance Authority, Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, etc. Charitable organizations and non-profits receive funding each year for programs “to optimally support citywide priorities” and provide or compliment city services for a wide variety of things like housing, food, after-school programs, the arts, etc. Organizations must apply by early December and are ostensibly scored using a points system to justify the funding request; the selected requests are included in the next fiscal year budget presented to City Council in March and approved by the end of May.
The audit found that out of the nearly $6 million budgeted for these organizations in the FY2023 budget (which took effect July 1, 2022), $1.45 million went to 16 groups that “did not meet the published scoring criteria or deadlines….” Thirteen groups that missed the application deadline received funding as did three organizations that didn’t meet the minimum score. The audit also found the city told groups that had received funding in prior years that the deadline was not enforced but never notified all the applicants or the broader public.
Meanwhile, 34 organizations that met the criteria were denied $2.37 million for which they had applied. The city’s Department of Human Services handled 79 of the 82 grant applications that year and made recommendations to the city’s budget office (Public Works and Planning & Development handled the other three applications).
The city’s grant contract states that any organization that does not fulfill the scope of services or meet performance measures must return the funds. The audit reviewed 25 non-profits who received grants (from the 82 total) and found that eight of the 25 “did not meet all performance measures outlined in their contracts, based on their final reports,” and another four never filed the required final report outlining how the money was spent for the benefit of the city and residents. Those 12 non-profits received a total of $700,000 of public monies, according to The Richmonder.
The process was a shambles from start to finish. Some applications were approved even though the applicants could not show the ability to deliver what they promised in the application, and one group “lacked substance and critical components such as reasonable goals and clear proof of previous success;” another group was approved without even showing the city they had a budget.
Some employees in the city’s Human Services office told the Auditor that some funds were given away “based solely on requests without requiring final reports or verifying
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