Charlotte Nc Misused Political Convention Funds

By Cliff Montgomery – June 12th, 2014 covered the daily activities of the 2012 Democratic National Convention (DNC) held in the city of Charlotte, NC. A large amount of our coverage focused on the immense – and, we often felt, undue – amount of public funds then being spent on ‘security for the Democratic delegates’.Now, a recent federal investigation has found that over $132,000 of U.S. taxpayer funds were misused by Charlotte city officials as they ramped up area security and surveillance during the 2012 DNC.Though the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) “found that the city generally claimed costs in accordance with grant requirements,” the IG also “found weaknesses in the areas of grant expenditures and the procurement of equipment.”In all, the IG found that Charlotte officials misused its federal security grant funds in the following ways:The city charged $7,955 in retirement supplement payments to a retired Police Captain. “A city official told us the city inadvertently charged the grant for these payments,” stated the report.The city double billed the grant $42,458 for salaries, overtime, and fringe benefits for 19 city personnel. “A city official told us the payment should not have been reimbursed from the grant and was an oversight,” declared the IG study. The city charged $12,295 for a lump sum payment to a Police Deputy Chief. A city official told the IG that “the payment should not have been reimbursed from the grant and was an oversight he thought had been corrected.” The city charged $16,603 in salaries, overtime, and fringe benefits for 39 employees of the Charlotte Fire Department. “A city official told us that these costs were inadvertently charged to the grant due to a clerical error, which the city did not realize until after the convention had concluded,” stated the report. The Justice Department IG also found that city officials wrongly charged U.S. taxpayers $53,676 for two unnecessary Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). The IG thus recommended that the city of Charlotte repay a total of “$132,987 in unallowable or unnecessary” grant expenditures. Charlotte officials have agreed to refund over half that total, declaring that $79,000 was incorrectly spent due to “clerical issues.” The city hopes to pay back those charges by June 30th. But they also said the remaining funds under question – nearly $54,000 – were properly used, and add that they will contest federal efforts to reclaim the money. The contested issue revolves around the purchase of two SUVs that were slated for such modifications as grab bars and running boards. Those planned changes were to aid in the transportation of law enforcement officers to convention events but the expected changes were never made, stated the IG report. The Charlotte Police Department “did intend to attach running boards and grab bars to the frames of these SUVs,” acknowledged Police Chief Rodney Monroe in his response to the IG draft audit report, but added that “once these vehicles were purchased and mock modifications were in progress, an expert in vehicle modification determined that the roof of the SUVs may not support the grab bars we had planned.” And although the city police department “did not attach running boards and grab bars to the vehicles, it did significantly modify the purchased vehicles in a way that would not have been allowed with rentals,” stated Chief Monroe. In May 2014, the Justice Department’s IG released its reviews of how well the two cities which hosted the 2012 presidential conventions – Charlotte, NC and Tampa, FL – spent their federal security grants for the events. Charlotte hosted the 2012 Democratic National Convention Tampa hosted the Republican National Convention. The Justice Department’s IG found that Tampa officials apparently misused $25,192 of federal security funds, on such matters as employing a taxpayer-bought SUV for non-security matters. But the two cities for the most part spent their funds rather well – each city received around $50 million for security expenses, after all. However, such findings will almost certainly add to the criticism that federal taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for events which now are little more than largely scripted political commercials. Cities which host the conventions also have been accused of misusing federal funds to buy up numerous resources and equipment that are unneeded for the events. “If Congress chooses to continue providing funds for presidential nominating convention security, future grant recipients need to place a greater emphasis on pursuing low cost alternatives to procuring grant-funded property whenever those options are available,” pointed out the report.