Thursday, September 17, 2009
News City recovers $81K fine from accounting snafu
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:06 PM
This is not a major news flash, but in the interest of fairness, it seems that if we're going to report on the city's mistakes, we should be willing to do a followup when the city corrects a mistake — or in this case, apparently proves it hadn't made a mistake after all.
Last month, Jim Glass, Atlanta's chief financial officer, acknowledged to reporters that the city had been forced to pay a $81,000 penalty because it had missed a payment deadline to a vendor. Glass called the slip-up a “miscommunication” on the part of a city employee, who, he said, had been appropriately reprimanded, but not fired.
Within minutes, Councilwoman Mary Norwood had piled on with her own press release:
“$80,000 isn’t a ‘miscommunication.' It’s a new Police Officer on the beat protecting your family and a raise for experienced officers so they stay in Atlanta instead of going out to the suburbs.”
Norwood finished by asserting she would bring “better management and accountability” after she's elected mayor.
Well, yesterday Glass had some good news for Mayor Franklin and the Council. Apparently, he'd been able to produce enough documentation to convince the vendor that the error really was the result of miscommunication and not completely the city's fault. The $81,000 has been refunded.
What do you suppose Norwood will say about this? So far, not a peep and I'm guessing it'll remain that way. Her campaign platform seems to be, "Elect me because the city's Finance Department sucks." Why change that now?
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Fine, Scott, but admit that Lisa's slogan is "Elect me because I've given all your tax money away to developers and now I'll hit you with a 'new point of sale sales tax"
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Jesus H., I can't deal with this lying anymore. BOTR - what Borders has said is the state has historically done a poor job of collecting the sales tax and that she proposes allowing the City to do the collection itself to ensure it gets every penny that is appropriate. She hasn't proposed a new sales tax. Whether you agree or not with her ideas, the good news is Lisa is taking the time to propose them. So is Kasim. Meanwhile Mary keeps spouting off about not knowing where the money is when asked how she'll pay for the 16 dozen things on her to-do list. Oh and insinuating that CFO Jim Glass and Shirley and crooked. Smart move. Btw, last night Mary said she'd let NPUs make the final decision on alcohol licensing. What a train wreck. She will say anything to any audience if she thinks they want to hear it.
Borders on the ridiculous, spare us the broken record drivel. You've given no facts to back up what you say, which is really the ridiculous part. What is this, Twitter? Norwood seems to keep putting her Easy Spirits in her mouth when it relates to budgets and finances with the city. She's spent eight years on council. She's said she can read a balance sheet, but can she comprehend it? It looks like the answer is a resounding "hell no". I seriously doubt Norwood will make a competent mayor. Hell, she's barely competent with arithmetic. Maybe she can bring in some more people off Edgewood near her campus office and treat 'em to a hot meal at Thumbs Up so she'll obtain additional snaggletoothed bums for her boring campaign videos.
Norwood also missed this morning's Airport Area Chamber of Commerce Mayoral Forum. They even carted the poor dear's chair right off the stage. You should have seen her staff -- their faces were as red as Mary's Alexis Carrington-era suits!
The video in question. "Nawf' side...souf' side..." Who still thinks in those terms? How antiquated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WGMimD-T0A
The betting question is whether Mary Norwood is better or worse off if: (a) she says nothing and tries to hold on to her lead despite the good progress being made by her challengers; or (b) she says something (such as Mary's earlier statement referenced in the article) and makes more people know how little she understands?
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