We now have 64 posts in our boondoggle file -- most have occurred under the watch of Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess. Once again we have proof that the County is just too big and bloated to manage. Our last boondoggle post was only a week ago on transit. To the County Commissioners' credit on the HUD money the Feds want back, they wouldn't release general funds to bail out management staff. According to Miami Herald reporter Martha Brannigan:
"In the latest sign of weak financial controls in Miami-Dade government, the county must pay back $3.6 million in federal grant funds received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after a federal audit found that county officials couldn't show the money was properly used."
12 comments:
First off, mucho kudos for keeping track of the boondoggles (had forgotten about the police chauffers for the commissioners!) - this is truly a community service.
As we enter the heat of the recall election, it pays to remember that we have a Strong Mayor Alvarez (he asked for it) who hired and supervises a county manager (Burgess).
Under the not so careful watch of these professional managers, the county has given us a stadium wihout a referendum, a tax increase to pay for salaries, a transit scandal, a housing scandal, a failed audit for misusing HUD funds, and a laundry list of lesser but still galling offenses.
I think it's clear we need new management.
bingo
amidst the sea of corruption and thievery in Miami-Dade county,how does one adapt/change to this new paradigm? i was raised in an atmosphere of ethical behavior, do unto others, etc...in present day, this moral compass always seems to leave me in last place. is it time to start cheating? is cheating,fraud,stealing,corruption the essentials of the 21st century guide to getting ahead in America? as a society, are we broken beyond repair?
Come on now, let's at least give the facts. The Feds were asking the County to account foe monies spent between 1994 and 2006. The audit was performed by HUD in response to the "House of Lies" fiasco.
The Feds threw a number over twice the $3.6 million at the County, and the current staff was able to dig back through that old mess, and provide verification for about half the stuff.
Who knows? Maybe Rene Rodriguez has the other receipts under his mattress. But you can't hang this whole thing on this administration.
M
Here's the relevant political rule: you own the crap that lands on your desk while you're sitting behind it. Alvarez is in year SIX of his term. Burgess has been at a senior, policy making level forever, including the entire period by the audit.
What else you got?
What's with the second to last anon's revisionist history?
The first housing scandal was entirely on the watch of Burgess and Alvarez. On Aug. 7, 2007, the U.S. Department of H.U.D. declared Miami-Dade in substantial default in its public housing contract. There were 3 violations to support the finding. Item #1 was "Material Accounting Errors in Financial Statements from 2003 to 2006." Item #2 was "Allocation of Program Costs in Violation of Regulations in FYs 2003 through 2006." Item #3 was "Failure to Account for HOPE IV Expenditures in FYs 2005 and 2006." I will be happy to provide the memo to this blog.
Burgess has been County Manager since June 2003. Alvarez was elected Mayor in 2004. With today's, revelation, we are now on our second housing scandal during the Alvarez administration. George Burgess and his handpicked cronies have run our county into the ground.
This is yet another example of the incompetence of County Manager George Burgess and his crony, Budget Director Jennifer Glazer-Moon. Burgess is the highest paid county manager in the nation at $422,118 per year, and yet he continues to mismanage our government with scandal after scandal. Neither he nor Glazer-Moon ($215,418 per year) will take responsibility for their management errors. They both would have been fired long ago if they worked in the private sector.
Amazingly, neither Burgess nor Glazer Moon has ever gone through a competitive selection process since the day they came to the county as interns. When you use the George Burgess crony system to hire and promote, don't be surprised when the organization is fraught with waste, incompetence, and corruption.
The first thing a new mayor must do is request the resignation of County Manager George Burgess and all his staff, every department director and every deputy department director.
Real reform will only occur by first cleaning out all of the George Burgess cronies and then hiring the best people available for each job through a fair, competitive, and transparent recruitment process.
Are you listening Carlos Gimenez?
Minor correction: the new Mayor doesn't need to "request" resignations. Burgess works at the pleasure of the Mayor and can be terminated at will.
Frankly, even if he has to be paid off because of the outrageous contract the commissioners gave him, the next Mayor should do it. Think of it as not throwing good money after bad.
Yes, they are at-will employees if they don't have a contract, but terminating first is a little harsh. Even though they are incompetent and overpaid, I think the new mayor should still treat the Burgess cronies with some dignity.
The proper thing to do is to ask for everyone's resignation, and then determine who you want to keep. If someone refuses to tender their resignation, of course you terminate them immediately.
We all need to thank Commissioner Rebecca Sosa and her outstanding staff for putting the breaks on this bailout. Sosa, as the new Chair over Housing and Community Development, will be able to stop these things from happening in the first place. We need more capable and insightful leaders like Rebecca on the county commission.
Her objection was the transfer of property tax money to a restricted fund that would only be used in high poverty areas. She has none. All she did was say to go look for the money somewhere else knowing that somewhere else doesnt exist.
She wasnt watching the budget just protecting her district even at the expense of the poorest residents.
nothing is ever as seems.
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