Mississippi government can't help itself. Democrat Republican Black White Commie Klukker SJW Dittohead male female. It doesn't matter who is in charge, he or she is going to figure out how to rip off everyone else. The Feds came calling, took a look at nearly $30 million in FEMA grants, and suspended the remaining grant payments. Some allegations will be very familiar to anyone who knows anything about Mississippi government:
Mississippi did not provide proper oversight of a $29.9 million grant for the Hazard Mitigation Program. As a result, FEMA has no assurance that Mississippi properly accounted for and expended Federal funds. Specifically, Mississippi (Move over Jackson and West Rankin Utility Authority. Make some room on that Group W bench.)
*allowed one employee complete authority over the Program, which influenced the approval of completion of work and payments to contractors (Who would've thunk it?)
*contends it has spent $31.5 million in state funds to complete work on 945 of the estimated 2,000 homes but has claimed only $957,776 for FEMA reimbursement; (I'm shocked, shocked mind you. This is more proof of the current and past Governor's approach to law enforcement in general. Unqualified good ole boys who treat their departments and employees as fiefdoms and serfs to be ruled with no accountability to anyone.)
*has not provided documentation to support $30.5 million paid to contractors. (Doc-u-men-tat-ion. Well it is a five-syllable word. Five syllable words are not recognized in Mississippi.)
*Mississippi allowed one employee complete authority over the Program, which influenced approval of completion of work and authorization of payments to contractors. Although Mississippi became aware of improper oversight as early as December 2014, it did not take any actions to stop or mitigate the problem until February 2016—after we initiated this audit and we had preliminary discussions with them on our findings. (No comment needed.)
*Before September 2012, the Mississippi Department of Finance (DFA) was responsible for managing the Program as MEMA’s subgrantee. DFA allowed one of its employees total control over the Program, which, in our opinion, created a breakdown in Mississippi’s accounting controls. In September 2012, this employee, along with responsibility for the Program, transferred to MEMA. While working for DFA and MEMA, according to Mississippi officials, this employee approved and influenced other State employees to process $31,475,706 in payments—more than the amount of the grant—using state funds for 945 of the estimated 2,000 homes within the project’s scope. In addition, according to MEMA officials, these actions may have circumvented the State’s accounting controls....
*Mississippi has only requested $957,776 in FEMA reimbursement because the employee did not allow a contracted accounting firm to reconcile payments of $30,517,930 in invoices. However, no one above the employee’s authority questioned the situation. Finally, in February 2016—after we initiated this audit—the newly appointed Executive Director of MEMA took actions to improve program oversight by firing several employees, securing program records, and coordinating with the Mississippi State Attorney General’s Office... (Wait, he blocked the accounting firm? This guy IS going to be prosecuted if the evidence warrants, such, RIGHT?)
*MEMA contends that it completed work on 945 homes—less than half of the 2,000 homes estimated in the project’s approved scope of work—and paid contractors $31,475,706 forthat work. This amount is $1,586,999 more than the entire $29,888,707 grant. According to the approved scope of work, retrofitting each home against wind damage would cost $14,944 on average($29,888,707 divided by 2,000). However, according to MEMA, retrofitting the 945 homes has cost$33,308 on average ($31,475,706 divided by 945), a 123 percent increase over the original estimate. MEMA did not provide any substantial evidence to justify the increase in costs. Further, the one employee who had complete control of the Program would not allow us or Mississippi officials access to the contractors’ invoices totaling $30,517,930. (That's right, she stood up to the Feds and wouldn't let them look at anything. Can't imagine why.)
Kingfish note: Therese Apel worked on the story for the CL. Sorry, but she is a former MEMA employee. She is a good reporter but she should not have been allowed to work on it.
Meanwhile, there better be some prosecutions. Mississippi's state law enforcement agencies are barely better run than JPS.
55 comments:
The employee was a she, not a he.
Back in the day, less than a year after Katrina hit, MEMA had a contract with Horne LLP to oversee and document the FEMA money flow to state and local government agencies being reimbursed for hurricane damage and recovery/repair costs. Basically it was an ongoing, continuous audit. While that was still going on, this mitigation project started and Horne's contract was expanded to include that. I guess in the meantime MEMA cancelled that contract and decided they could do it themselves?
Are you saying the money is missing or misappropriated ? I'm lost on this one !!!!!! Who is at fault ?
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
*Mississippi allowed one employee complete authority over the Program, which influenced approval of completion of work and authorization of payments to contractors. Although Mississippi became aware of improper oversight as early as December 2014, it did not take any actions to stop or mitigate the problem until February 2016—after we initiated this audit and we had preliminary discussions with them on our findings. (No comment needed.)
*Before September 2012, the Mississippi Department of Finance (DFA) was responsible for managing the Program as MEMA’s subgrantee. DFA allowed one of its employees total control over the Program, which, in our opinion, created a breakdown in Mississippi’s accounting controls. In September 2012, this employee, along with responsibility for the Program, transferred to MEMA. While working for DFA and MEMA, according to Mississippi officials, this employee approved and influenced other State employees to process $31,475,706 in payments—more than the amount of the grant—using state funds for 945 of the estimated 2,000 homes within the project’s scope. In addition, according to MEMA officials, these actions may have circumvented the State’s accounting controls....
Could have said something like
Look here! See they done had dat evil Uncle Sugar bent over fo mo o dat bidness the good old boy way. Who all got some?
MS Dept of Corrections
JPS
MS Dept of Educ
MEMA
Everywhere we look, an agency is either incompetently managed or outright corrupt. What the hell is going on in this state?
Sounds similar to SOS work on behalf of Morgan Stanley, that revered ole Mississippi - based firm
Indictments or GTFO.
What will it take before people learn the govt. is a very crooked business and all politicians are crooked. Every single program the govt. has been involved in has quickly became a slush fund for politicians and their friends. There isn't a single honest govt. program.
We elect the dishonest who hire the unexperienced to fool the uneducated.
We have to re-elect them. Since they have a bunch of buildings with their names on them I'm told that means they must be doing a good job. If I ask a question about what has been accomplished since they were elected that makes me a racist.
Same republicans that were in charge then are in charge now.
12:26 We elect the dishonest and then they hire their consultants who ran their campaigns.You can go to all of the counties who received any of the money from FEMA after Katrina and find most was misspent on unneeded infrastructure and much was never spent as intended and stayed in the pockets of those who oversaw and managed the federal funds.
Same republicans that were in charge then are in charge now.
Which ones?
Remember - 90% of the voters say they despise the Congress (or Legislature) but 60% say their own representative is great. Go figure.
PITT PANTHER, Mississippi is actually listed as the most corrupt state in the USA with the most corrupt politicians. We have had that honor for several decades. WOW !!! ARE YOU SURPRISED ??????????????
12:08, you forgot the MS Department of Public Safety. The moron that just got fired (yes Rusty, you got fired) from homeland security, his incompetence cost the taxpayers $75,000, it may not seem like a lot of money, but if you add all of the cases DPS has had to settle while Santa Cruz has been Commissioner it would show just how much we tolerate incompetence.
Before heading off in all directions, maybe somebody should READ THE REPORT. It says that funds, which have not yet been drawn down by MEMA, may have been improperly spent. That's why FEMA is "suspending" payment of additional funds until the audit is completed. While it appears that the prior management of MEMA did permit the contract work to go on without proper internal controls, the current MEMA management is trying to correct that situation to sort out whether the State is, in fact, entitled to draw down the money from FEMA.
If we have awarded $31 million, but only sought $1 million in Federal $, where did the other $30 million come from?
It will never change until the people get a little smarter. Many actually think there is a difference in republicans and democrats. No matter how many times the power changes from one to the other and things still stay the same or gets worse.
I am beginning to think we have a country of deadbeats, crooks, and idiots. Over half pf the people are on some type of govt. benefits. All of the politicians are crooks. The people keep electing the crooks while arguing their crooks is better than the other crook even though they all do the same thing.
I wonder if the one in charge is that lady that parades around town in the big black Infinity QX56 SUV with MEMA plastered on the side? Mighty fine ride for a emergency management vehicle.
Yes, I know technically Nissan has a place in Canton, but its not Infinity.
2:01 - The way programs like this are set up is that the state (MEMA) pays the money and then gets reimbursed by the federal government. So the state has already paid out the funds but so far (for whatever reason) has only sought reimbursement for less than $1m. Now that FEMA will cut off reimbursements, the state is on the hook for the difference, and may also have to pay back to FEMA the $957k that was reimbursed as well.
2:56, those Infiniti SUVs were donated and they all have stickers that say "donated vehicle" on them
Nisson donated 50+ vehicles to the state after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The infinity's were included along with Nisson trucks and pathfinders.
1:50pm, did you miss the part where FEMA said they notified MEMA about their concerns back in 2014, but nothing was done until February of this year (once they knew the shit was hitting the fan)?
Stop apologizing for crooks, unless you are a crook yourself or you suckle at the teat of another crook.
I know the lady and I don't believe she did anything wrong. If I know Phil, and I know Phil, he told her to do this via direction of his former DFA Director. She would never act alone - it is not in her character. I have seen her work around DFA for a number of years and in 2012 became the Deputy Director of MEMA. She would come to the Capitol with the Executive Director - someone had to tell her to do it or else. Cowboy Phil comes to my mind!
3:42, she should have never been given the job. That is the problem with the govt. Too many people are given a job they cannot do.
Somewhere along the line the govt, politicians, have decided the people do not need any knowledge or experience to do a job. It never works for the people but it does get the politician re elected.
"Mississippi is actually listed as the most corrupt state in the USA with the most corrupt politicians. We have had that honor for several decades. "
That is an outrageous, bald-faced LIE!!!
Louisiana has the most corrupt legislators. Our legislators are known far and wide (very wide, some of 'em) for being the dumbest.
Get it straight, tourist.
Is MEMA a law enforcement agency?
This is a report from the OIG of FEMA. OIG reports generally start off with the sky has fallen and cannot ever, possibly, be replaced. All that this report says is that the reporting required by the grant has not been made, and until it is the state is not going to get paid the FEMA dollars. My bet - this report will get somebody off their duff and do the paperwork. Once it is submitted and MEMA makes its response to the IG report (which is a standard part of the process) the final result will be that FEMA pays the grant - or at least 95% of it - to the state to reimburse what has been spent.
Fun to raise hell with about people you don't like - but there are a lot of other real issues out there to waste time on an initial OIG report over grant funding.
I'm pretty sure Bryant, Reeves and Gun were all state officials shortly after Katrina and all of their operatives were fully entrenched.
This is another example of the persecution of the people of Mississippi by the socialist Obama administration.
Haley?
Phil's top notch agency managers strike again!
$31 mil, chicken feed. Sun Herald ran a week long investigation, "where did the money go" a year or so after Katrina. I remember reading that 1$ in 6$ was unaccounted . No big deal until the $6 was 6$ billion. Think they stopped looking.
Phil's dynasty: corrupt managers; inept managers; misspent money.....
There is a reason Haley ran Latham off, yet Phil brought him back.
5:58 is spot on. Obama has been targeting MS federal funds for about three years now. Everyone involved with the oversight and management of these funds is well aware of it.
And Horne overlooking funds means nothing. There isn't a dollar that comes to Mississippi that Horne doesn't have its hands on. And rest assured, the people Horne has assigned to this job are hardly qualified.
Run Phil run!
The whole fault starts and ends with Robert Latham. The only reason he came back to MEMA was to jack up his retirement about 20K a year.
After Latham hired Deb Biggers, everyone at DFA wanted to know why? They all talked about how DFA was about to get rid of her. Next thing you know, Latham promotes incompetency to a Deputy Director. He was good at surrounding himself with people he could pin his failures on and still make himself look clean.
After his first two years, he became totally ineffective as Director. You never knew what frame of mind he’d be in from one day to the next or what he would do that would astound everyone.
In 2015, he promoted incompetency again by hiring an Office Director “Chad Callender” (Check Mississippi Today for that name), even after the state personnel board informed him Callender wasn’t qualified for the job, Latham put him in the job anyway. Callender was the joke of MEMA and all the county EMA’s and state agencies that had to work with MEMA, because all he was able to do was talk big, lie and drop names, but never accomplish anything. If Callender becomes your friend, wear Kevlar on your back and get rid of him quick. Latham spent more time trying to find ways to ignore the complaints made against Callender, than he did running the agency. To keep himself spotless, Latham turned all those problems over to his Chief of Staff, Bill Brown who became part of the problem.
Brown just let Biggers and Callender ran rampant, spending money and making decisions and trying to lay the blame on other people. Latham & Brown how do you justify letting Callender hire a radio installer at $50K a year, when no one else in the agency had not had a raise in 6 years? Did you question why Deb Biggers bought an $1800.00 shredder for her office and shredded papers for hours at a time for months. How do you spend all the money allotted for pre-let contracts, but only complete half of the work Deb???? Oh yea, you had to jack up Mike Ferdinand’s salary.
Why didn’t the Chief of Staff, Bill Brown or Robert Latham do something about Biggers & Callender and all the problems they caused?
If the IG wants some serious answers, he should talk to the MEMA lawyer who was there at that time when all these practices were going on.
Can we start a pool on Phil's next management fiasco? I'm in.
9:27 knows what's going on
WTF is SJW?
I'm sort of wondering why Horne LLP continues to provide services for the state and it's agencies?
Horne LLP has milked MEMA and taxpayers in the past and have been rebuked by the Dept of Homeland Security for charging ridiculously high fees.
Horne LLP also performed shoddy work for the Public Service Commission and Entergy by basically overcharging the PSC for work that never really took place. Horne LLP cleverly blamed Entergy for that round of cash grabbing.
So why do we continue to pay all of the taxpayers money, to all of these people, with all of these acronyms attached to their names at Horne LLP? They are supposed to be providing oversight/accounting of funds coming in from the federal government. However, every time accounting of funds needs to take place the state gets blasted with an IG report that says accounting of federal funds isn't taking place.
Why do we continue to pay taypayer money to private business for work that is not being performed?
Anybody wanta take a stab at what Phil's PERS retirement check will be?
The State should run Jackson and its airport.
Agree 11:47, Horne is thick as thieves with the state. The gaming commission contracted its background investigations for licenses with Horne when its investigators were finding too many derogatory issues with gaming license applicants. Miraculously, findings decreased significantly (like to none) once Horne came along. So did potential operators suddenly become more clean, or did Horne "clean" them for the state?
That's what happens when Phillllll lets the agencies run themselves. He never shows any leadership with them unless Porter needs something.
A more accurate title would be, "Taxpayers of Mississippi Get Ripped Off Every Day by Inept State Government." But that's really not a story, because it seems to be the expectation and happens every single day.
7:32, if people would stop electing these life ling politicians we might see something different. Not much chance of that happening as many actually think a politician has to be a member of a special group before they will vote for them.
Just think of how much better the state would be if it seized on all of the missed opportunities destroyed by the good ole boy system. Think about how much better off MEMA would be if Callender and Biggers weren't placed into their positions. Reading this forum for the past several months I can't help but think about how much better off the homeland security office would have been if qualified candidates would have been selected instead of Barnes and Beard. I don't know any of these people, but it certainly seems like the state could have done better for her citizens in selecting at the very least people who qualified for the jobs into which they were placed. It's almost like the state is trying to fail.
I'm a recent transplant and have found that doing business here is harder than in some third-world countries due to the implied quid pro quo on every level. If the state wants to be taken seriously, this kind of crap has to stop.
10:11, This kind of crap is not going to stop. Too many politicians get rich, too many politician friends get jobs, and too much money passed under the table. The people will keep electing these dishonest politicians. The crooked politicians will see no need to change.
10:11 - if you are going to make your decisions, on matters that you admit you know nothing about - by the comments on this or any other blog, God Bless you cause you haven't got any chance in whatever business it is that you are trying to get into.
One must take the comments here (including this one, of course) as just opinions of various individuals. And that also includes the posts put up by the blog administrator - as he admits, are often nothing more than something to generate traffic.
"Is MEMA a law enforcement agency?"
Did anyone answer this question. KF seems to imply that there is a law enforcement agency in this, but I thought MEMA was a bunch of fire fighters.
No, MEMA is not a law enforcement agency. How's that.
MEMA is also not a bunch of fire fighters.
MEMA is a bunch of bureaucrats that help organize in case of disasters (large and small) - generally work to coordinate assets of the state with local community Emergency Management Divisions (and local fire fighters. There you are.)
MEMA also is the group that pushes the pencils to submit paperwork documenting costs related to disasters to justify federal grants (FEMA) that help reimburse local communities and the state for allowable expenses spent due to the disasters.
Horne is Six Sigma which is basically a cult of brainwashed individuals bowing at the alter of corporate worship.
Instead of working, people are assigned projects to attain higher levels of knowledge or belts--like in martial arts.
They get all giddy on buzz words, like the "process" and spend most of their time trying to attain the next level belt on their new "project" that they came up with in order to get promoted.
As you can probably guess--the real work that needs to take place within the firm suffers becasue of this...in this case government oversight.
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