Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
September 28, 2016 5:58 p.m.
With the advice and consent of the Fernandina Beach City Commission, the city has gone out on bid for a forensic audit of the Parks and Recreation Department. RFP 2016-05, which hit the streets on September 23, 2016, seeks bids for a forensic audit of special events held by the Parks and Recreation Department, City of Fernandina Beach, between January 2015 through September 2016, approximately 20-25 events. Responses from interested firms are due not later than October 7, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. EST. A complete copy of the RFP may be found on the city’s website www.fbfl.us.
Upon completion of the audit, the Forensic Examiner will provide “a written report communicating all discovered abnormal activity, past or present, its quantification, cause and consequence … to a level sufficient to enable the city to collect any potentially recoverable losses.” The city also seeks recommendations for appropriate actions to “prevent future abnormal activities relating to forthcoming contracts of a similar nature [i.e. special events].”
Should the Fernandina Beach City Commission (FBCC) decide to award the bid, it would not take such action prior to its October 18, 2016 Regular Meeting. When last discussed, consensus appeared to be to proceed to bid stage before making a final determination. It is not a given at this point that the FBCC will proceed to award the bid, due to the anticipated cost of such an examination.
History of problems
Problems with special events and the Parks and Recreation Department surfaced in 2015 with the cancellation of the widely advertised Umphrey’s McGee concert. [See Fernandina Observer articles https://fernandinaobserver.com/2015/05/28/the-story-behind-the-cancelled-umphreys-mcgee-concert/ and https://fernandinaobserver.com/2015/03/30/park-manager-explains-cancellation-of-umphreys-mcgee-concert-scheduled-in-april/ for background.]
Problems continued that led to cancellation of a barbecue event in 2016 [https://fernandinaobserver.com/2016/06/01/parks-and-wreck/ ]. While no disciplinary action resulted from the 2015 cancellation, City Manager Dale Martin suspended Parks and Recreation employee Jay Robertson for 3 days following the 2016 event. Additionally, the FBCC retained the firm of Dufresne & Associates, CPA, PA to help identify significant internal control deficiencies and to provide recommendations to strengthen controls of all Parks and Recreation Department programs and special events.
While the City Manager initially recommended against proceeding with what could be an expensive forensic audit to follow the initial report, several commissioners expressed support for further investigation into the shortcomings identified and the recommendations of the Dufresne report, including the forensic audit. According to language in the RFP, “In support of the principles of corporate accountability, transparency, responsibility, and sound ethical operating practices, the public, City Commissioners, and staff may contact the [Forensic Accounting] Firm directly to report suspected fraudulent activities, significant waste of City assets, unethical behavior and other acts of misconduct.”
Other Parks and Rec personnel problems
Unrest continues in the Parks and Rec Department. Department Director Nan Voit is serving out a 5-day unpaid suspension this week for inappropriate text messages sent to her staff following her performance review recently delivered by City Manager Dale Martin.
Voit’s annual performance had been rated as less than fully satisfactory in a formal evaluation for the period ending August 31, 2016. In her evaluation, City Manager Dale Martin wrote: “Ms. Voit works well with the users of City recreational facilities—for the number of users, complaints and concerns have been minimal. Staff communication, however, is undermining morale/effectiveness. … Ms. Voit demonstrated poor decision-making with her failure to supervise staff. Continued comments regarding loss of staff must be tempered. Direction and commitment need to be provided to staff.” Martin went on to add, “Significant improvements are required.”
Martin subsequently discovered that Voit had sent a series of text messages to her subordinate staff. In a written communication to Voit dated September 23, 2016, notifying her of her 5-day suspension, Martin wrote, “I found those messages, including the manner in which you addressed your subordinates in the messages, to be completely unprofessional and unacceptable for a senior employee of the City of Fernandina Beach. Even more disturbing is the perceived disregard for issues raised during the discussion of your evaluation, as indicated by the text messages you sent less than one hour after several of those issues were cited as a factor in your evaluation.”
When contacted for comment, City Manager Martin replied, “The text messages transmitted by Ms. Voit to her staff were unprofessional. I have higher expectations of conduct for senior City staff. I do not anticipate a recurrence of this behavior. I look forward to working with Ms. Voit to address the challenges described in the recent report from Dufresne and Associates.” Note that the Dufresne report is available on the city website www.fbfl.us.
Editor’s Note: Suanne Z. Thamm is a native of Chautauqua County, NY, who moved to Fernandina Beach from Alexandria,VA, in 1994. As a long time city resident and city watcher, she provides interesting insight into the many issues that impact our city. We are grateful for Suanne’s many contributions to the Fernandina Observer.
I still don’t understand why the City Commission continues to go down the path of the RFP for an outside commercial forensic examiner. If there is suspected malfeasance within the P&R department, then have the Police Department request an investigation team from the state’s FDLE come in and conduct an independent investigation which shouldn’t cost the City anything. The FDLE has a team of experienced financial forensic investigators who should quickly get to the bottom of things.
My concern is that like the Dufrense & Associates report, which was little more than a boiler plate response of financial control best practices with the hope (expectation) for follow-on work, any subsequent work will result in continue scope creep with the company citing the need to devote more resources to dive deeper into the situation. To drag this out would only serve to further hurt morale in the department so it needs to be completed as quickly as possible.
I certainly understand the need to put to resolve all the uncertainty around these events and the various allegations made by an independent third party, but there seems to be a more expeditious and less costly way to do it.
It seems to me that a lot of blame is being placed on employee Jay Robertson when it’s clear that Ms. Voit is at fault as well. While it was Mr. Robertson’s error that led to the audit, the audit revealed that there were improvements to be made in many areas within the Parks & Recreation Department including the pool, tennis program, etc. A strong director would have policies in place to insure that cash collected is being handled appropriately in all areas of her department. She would also be reviewing any document that was sent out by that office. She is ultimately responsible for things taking place within her department however she continues to place blame on the employees as further demonstrated when she began to send those text messages.