TRUE Commission - Apr 09, 2026

Welcome to the true commission today. You want to start introducing yourselves? Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Kishan Chambliss-Hargrove. I'm a true commissioner. I'm representing the president of council. Charles Vara, vice chair, representing the president of council. Bruce Tyson, Southwest CPAC. Stephanie Oglesby, North CPAC. Colleen Hampsey, Council of Research. Tommy Carter, Council Auditor's office. Brian Parks, Council Auditor's office. Provenza County Division. Marcia Solo, Comptroller. Welcome everybody here today. Tommy, do you have such a big load today you had to bring some help? Something like that. Well, it looks like, so we don't have a quorum, right? Well, it looks like the very first thing will be the city comptroller, Marcia Solo, for your presentation. Good afternoon. I am the comptroller. Joel is my assistant comptroller for systems and reporting. So he has graciously agreed to do the report for us today. And I'll be here for his support. And if you all have questions, we'll do our best to answer them. Thank you. Good afternoon. Joel Provenza, again. Thank you for inviting us to be here and to talk about our year-in-closing process. The year-in-closing process is really a coordinated organization-wide effort, which is really an ongoing effort that lasts throughout the year. And the one-cloud system has monthly closings. We close all our sub-ledgers and our main general ledger every month. Some of our quarterly closings are more of a focus because of our needs for quarterly reporting. So we try to make sure that that one is a very clean – those quarterly closings are very clean and thorough. Year-end closing does become more of a focus as the year goes on, beginning as early as even now, April-May timeframe, where internal deadlines are established and communicated, things such as AP deadlines, ARA deadlines, procurement deadlines, journal entry deadlines. And throughout our summertime, we begin to focus more and more on the year-in-closing and preparing for that with internal meetings to discuss our audit, our past audit, our upcoming audit, past issues, upcoming issues. We additionally meet with our auditors for planning out the audit and establishing an audit timeline. Going along with that timeline, our auditors present to us a PBC listing, our prepared-by-client assignments, which have due dates, which we monitor carefully and make sure – again, getting those submitted timely, accurately is critical for the audit timeline. So we monitor those actively throughout our months. Those usually come out in September and ongoing through the audit process. We also utilize weekly meetings internally. We can discuss audit issues and year-end issues, year-end audit issues. And throughout our audit, we have meetings with our auditors to make sure everything is running smoothly. And on time, we could discuss any problems and address. So, I mean, that's a very high-level overview of the process. Is there anything I can answer, any questions to clarify anything? I mean, that's all I have. I mean, but I could go into as much detail as you'd like. Okay. Commissioner Oglesby. My question is in reference to – and, Commissioners, correct me if I'm wrong – JTA, they constantly go over budget and they don't come back in in order to request an additional funds. Do you have any procedures in place to prevent that from continuing to happen? We don't do anything with JTA. That's not part of our – Oh, okay. We can't answer any questions about it. They have to give us their closing, their audits at the end of the year before we can finish our annual comprehensive financial report. But we don't have any control over them or interaction with them other than that. I was going to state that. Oh, okay. Thank you. Mr. Bash, you got anything? No. I have one question. You say you close – you actually close monthly and then – what do you mean by close? Is it – what does the word close entail? Well, we close the month, like, for example, every month in our financial system is closed. The due date is usually roughly about two weeks into the following month. We try to review all the subledgers, make sure nothing – everything is cleaned up and, you know, the books are good to go to close. And we can – with the closing, then you can report on a month, you know. It's a process where there's multiple modules, you know, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fund accounting. So, obviously, transactions go in throughout the month, and then there are procedures at the end of the month. Just like if you are a good personal finance person, you're probably balancing your checkbook, right, every month? Yeah, right, we don't do that anymore, personally, right? We use electronics. But we have a really good electronic system. So, every month, as Joel said, at the end of the month, there's a process that starts really the last day of the month. And each module walks through – it has to be in a certain order and go through and make sure everything is balanced, nothing – there's not a problem. And then we close it, which means, at that point, you can't make any other entries into that month unless you open it. So, we do that each month throughout the year. And as he said, it's really about the middle of each month following that it's closed. Can you take all of those at the quarterly – take them up and together to make the quarterly report? Yeah, at the end of the quarter. So, you know, obviously, the first quarter would end December 31st. So, the finance department, accounting, along with other departments in the city, are working to get each month closed. It's very important that we not only are on time for each month, but at the end of the quarter, we have to be on time. Because when accounting says we're closed, then the budget division takes over to prepare a report that the budget officer and the CFO then present to the council auditors. Then they prepare the report that goes to city council, and there's deadlines for that. What happens if somebody doesn't – what happens if somebody doesn't make it or doesn't come in? I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. What's the procedure if somebody doesn't get theirs closed or doesn't submit like they're supposed to? If they don't get it closed? They don't submit the proper paperwork at the proper time, or is it all done by computer so there's nobody – Well, I think I understand your question. So, yeah, we – there's a process that we go through to make sure every transaction in the system usually has backup documentation. And that's really important, particularly when we close the entire year and it gets audited. Because auditors have a way of asking lots of questions and wanting you to prove that everything you have in there is right. The documentation is very critical for that. So, also, particularly at the end of the quarter, our fund accounting team is looking at each fund and other things to make sure it balances and things don't look weird. And if we succeed in doing that on a monthly basis, it makes the quarterly reports much easier to compile and then the end of the year report also. And, yes, if things are missing, if there's problems, then that can slow things down. So, as Joel mentioned at the beginning, it's a coordinated effort throughout the departments and the city to make sure everything's in on time. And there can be some valid reasons things are late and then invalid reasons things are late. But it's a big effort. I have one. This is Commissioner Hargrove. My question is, we were talking about things that close out, or things, perhaps there are situations where there are deadline dates and they're not meeting. And what's the consequences to that when they don't meet their deadline? When somebody doesn't meet a deadline? Yeah, yeah. Well, if one of my staff members is having a problem with something, they let me know. We have weekly meetings in my team. Then my boss, who's the CFO, has, I mean, I meet with her regularly. And if we need more help getting things in, she'll step in. She will communicate with other directors and say, hey, we're having a problem here. We need help here. So, yeah, we can raise it up appropriately. Okay. Thank you. I apologize for my tardiness, but whenever the barometric pressure changes in Jacksonville, people forget how to drive. Today is one of those days. Anyway, I can't hear. So, I gather you're Ms. Salo? That's fine. Solo, Salo. Solo. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming and presenting. So, we have set aside until 4.15 for your comments. We have a minute left. Any additional information you would like to offer? Yeah, well, you know, I've been here almost six years now. And right when I got here, we were just beginning to implement OneCloud, our ERP. And I actually had the pleasure of speaking to this group back then. And I want to say that we have greatly improved what we're doing. We have learned more about what the system is doing. I'm really proud of my team and other people in the city who have really dug in and figured out how to use this system to the best of our ability. It's a complicated system. It allows us to do a lot of wonderful things, but learning how to do all those things can take time. But we keep getting better. Our external auditors are very happy with us. We have meetings with them, as Joel said, every week right now during audit season. And the team lead today was talking about how much she's enjoyed watching us get better every year. And it's been an interesting process. Thank you very much. I have a real quick question, and maybe you're the appropriate person. If not, I see how we budget, we adopt our city budget by departments, and yet the annual comprehensive financial report appears to report by function. So there's a disconnect in how we appropriate our money versus how we report it having been spent. Is there somewhere within the executive branch that we can reconcile what was appropriated by the city council and follow that through the spending process until the books are closed out at the end of the fiscal year on a quarterly, preferably a monthly basis? Yeah, they do match. They do match. I realize it can be complicated to figure out how the accounting string actually has. Technically, it has seven segments, and only five of them are active, really. Or five or six, I forget. There's one that's not. Anyway, but yes, absolutely, the budget is set, and in the system, you cannot spend more than has been appropriated. Now, sometimes, and I have the ability to override things if it comes in, but you've got to give me a really good reason. Most of the time I'm saying, no, I can't override this. Sometimes there's valid reasons, but yes, the budget matches, the appropriation matches the expenditures. And if it's not, that is a problem. But when it's reported at the end of the year, the annual comprehensive financial report, it's reported by function. For instance, we budget, we appropriate based on departments. So, JFRD has a budgeted amount. The sheriff's office has an amount that is budgeted. But when the ACFR comes out, it's reported as a lump sum under public safety. There's no way to really discern what was appropriated versus what was expended unless there is a supplemental report about which I have no knowledge that reconciles the two. So, there are requirements for how an ACFR is created and the tight tables and charts that have to be provided. And you're right, there's a lot of different ways things could be reported. And the way the budget's developed, there's regulations and rules for how that's done. Our council auditors might be a better person to talk about how we can reconcile them. It's just a matter of the reporting requirements that we have to do. And you can certainly do all kinds of reports in the system. The system itself has lots of abilities, which we continue to learn how to do. So, if there's something specific you want, you can certainly ask for that up to the appropriate channels. But you're right. The budget is reported in a certain way. And then the ACFR has to be reported in a different way. And the quarterly reports, if you look for them, they're kind of a little different too. But they are all matching the same numbers. So, what you're telling me is there really isn't a uniform method for reporting what was adopted by city council as the budget versus reporting on an interim basis every quarter versus what is reported at the end of the year. So, I don't know if that's really what I'm telling him. I'm going to let Brian. Do you see where I'm coming from? So, Brian Parks, council auditor's office. First, as it relates to the quarterly summary, it is very similar, actually, to what is approved by council. It's going fund by fund. There are different reports in there that will show certain information by department as well. You'll see a page that has every department in the general fund. And so, there is lots of detail that go below that. So, that is very much in the same way. Like, as Marcia mentioned, the ACFER has set rules on how that's reported. So, we don't necessarily have as much control now. I don't know whether or not a supplementary information, there could be some options of having something reported there. But that's not – that would be six, nine months potentially after the end of the year. And you go – I'll kind of go into this point for a second. Please keep in mind, even when you're looking at – if you pulled on 930 at the end of a year, that's not all the numbers. Because there are a lot of adjustments that have to take place between then and when they're able to issue the report. So, like, when we do the quarterly – like, they do a quarterly summary for the year-end, that is an unaudited number with the knowledge that there's other adjustments that are going to happen. And we always disclaim that. And at the end of the year, there can even be larger ones that could take place. So, like, a thing that doesn't get accrued every single pay period is, like, payroll. Like, we don't accrue that in every single quarter to adjust for that. Now, our projections that happen in the quarterly summary account for that to give you idea, to give council knowledge of how the year-end is going to be. That's why the accounting division work pulls the actuals. The budget office is projecting them. And we're looking at all of that to see, does this look like to be a reasonable basis to give council an idea of how the year is going to end? And so, that's the whole point of what the quarterly summary – that is, that constant update. I know the largest single component of our city budget is our human capital. Yep. About 60%, 65% of the total budget, perhaps, is ballpark. Seems reasonable. So, are our city employees paid semi-monthly or bi-weekly? Bi-weekly. Bi-weekly. So, we have 26 – In arrears one week, but yes. Okay. So, we have 26 pay periods within the year. Okay. So, when we're doing our quarterly reports, your accruals are not going to match what you report are not going to match what was actually expended. There's not an accrual that happens until the end of the year is what the point is. But the projections – so, like, when you look at the quarterly summary, they have a budget, actuals, encumbrances, and projections – like, and then they have a projection on where they'll end. Those projections factor in those accruals. That's the whole point. To get to how many – so, it'll be 26 pay periods in actually a day. That's all factored into the projections to give you a better idea. It also factors in where maybe we have an expense that happens in October for, like, $2 million, but it doesn't – it covers the entire year. Or we don't have an expense that happens until August. Like, that's what the point of the projections – because you might look at the first quarter, think things are like – wait, like, there hasn't been a lot of spending. There's going to be a ton of savings. But that's not true because that's where the trends need to be factored in and everything else. And as I understand it, we budget on an annual basis. Yes. In other words, the city government doesn't say our budget for this month is going to be X. The budget for February is going to be Y. They just say our budget for the year is going to be the sum of the first 12 months. Correct, and all of the different departments, the administration, the constitutional officers, all have to manage their budgets to meet those needs. They have to factor in if revenue is coming in less, they need to be reducing expenditures, and that's a part – that's why we have the quarterly summary, though, to identify problems so people can make adjustments as need be. So they don't know that until the quarterly has ended? Well, the departments should be monitoring that on their own. We – like, it's coming in with accounting and us coming in as well, but they – like, at the quarter piece, and that's when we're reporting on it, but every – they – their department, they have finance people in their different areas, and they should be monitoring things and making sure how things are going. That's why they may have to go to the Mayor's Budget Review Commission to transfer money from this line item to this line item during the year because they notice they're going to have a problem. Like, electricity's up and we need more money there, or electricity's down and there's savings there. It just – there's lots of things that can come into play. So we just passed March 31st. So at this point, this should be the city's high point of cash on hand because we've just collected – It'll actually be basically December, beginning of December. It'll be the high point? Yeah, it's going to be right in that frame because if you have a mortgage per state law, the mortgage company has to pay the property taxes in November for the largest discount. They're going to pay it at the end of the month, and so sometime in the end of November, beginning of December is when that large transfer is going to come over. I defer to Treasury on the exact – but it'll always depend. That's usually going to be December, maybe into January, but that's going to be the high point on cash. So what percentage of the 12-month collections is collected by the – we'll give it the two months, the 4% and the 3% discounts. What percentage of Avalorum taxes is collected in the bank by the end of December as opposed to what is budgeted for the year? I could not tell you that. Who can answer that question? I mean, that would be the tax collectors who actually receives and records and processes. But the city government is responsible for reporting our financial information. I'm just saying they're the ones that collect that piece. We have the billings that go to it because we reconcile once they finalize the number, we factor that in. We are good on cash. So keep in mind we get that cash. And then also if people don't pay property taxes, there's a tax certificate sale that happens in May, June. So we're going to receive the cash. So like the collections – there's actually a statement in the ACFA that shows how much of that we collect. We collect our property taxes in the end because it's going to be either at the discount. And we have to – and when we're calculating what to budget, we actually have to budget at a lesser amount to factor in that there will be a discount and everything else. Okay. All right. Who can provide to me a monthly report of what is budgeted to be spent by department versus what was spent by department? But, again, we don't – so do you want it to be budgeted like just a 112th? Because that's not how it's budgeted. We only budget on a year. I know. So I come from the private sector, and we prepare financial statements every month. We would budget our revenue every month. We would budget our expenses every month. And at the end of the month, when we closed out the books, we had to report on the variances. Right. But you've got to keep in mind the difference is we have a legal responsibility that they have to stay in the budget by fund, which is actually different than the private sector. Where the private sector, those aren't legal appropriate, like where it's – Either make a profit or we make a loss. Right. But that's where they have to stay within that budgetary authority for the entire year. And if you tried to estimate that piece, yes, you can explain the variances. That's fine. But it could create other problems. Then let's try to do it the easy way. Is there a report that would tell me what was budgeted for fiscal year 2025, ending September 30th, 2025? So from October 1st, 2024 through September 30th, 2025, what was budgeted by department, by line item, and what was actually spent by department, by line item for that fiscal year? Does such a report exist? They would have to – I would defer to them to creating something like that. But I'll add in, those numbers are not final yet, as the ACFA is still being worked on. And you have 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to present final numbers. Is that correct? I'm going to defer. I think that's – it's actually 630 is going to be a state law piece, I believe. Right. We have – Nine months? Yes. We have until June 30th to get the ACFA in. We are trying to get it sooner. So we're not going to know for nine months whether or not we have overspent in city government? As Brian indicated, there's quarterly reports every quarter, and there's a quarterly report for the end of September that comes out in October, finally. So it's a 45-day – a 45-day lag? So on a normal quarterly, it's 45 days. It's 30 days for them to prepare and then 15 for us. I believe the final quarter is 60 days plus then us the 15th, and that's why I think we issue that one on December 15th is actually for the year. So that's – at that point, that is the best numbers then, but there's a lot of reconciliation and adjustments that we can only do at the end of the year. And as Brian mentioned, certain accruals are only done at the end of the year. So we actually, on the accounting side, even though a month has 12 years, we have 13 period or the adjusting period at the end. So I'm going to throw out a radical idea. So I grew up in the banking world. I was with Barnett Banks. We were a publicly traded company, traded on New York Stock Exchange. We reported quarterly. So by March 31st, when our first quarter ended, we were on a calendar year basis. And we would release our earnings by April the 10th. Why does it take city government so long to – and we were doing accruals. We were, you know, matching payroll to the timeframes on all of this. We were accruing our expenses versus, you know, actual. We could determine where our variances were. Why can't city government do that? I mean, it's all automated. Resources, one thing, and different requirements. Government is different than industry. I understand what you're saying. You know, there's different requirements in industry also, some of which we don't have to do. But there are a lot of things we do have to do in government, and resources are part of the issue. If there was some call that we really had to get every quarter closed within 15 days, that would take more people than we have. So – and you're not the cause of this, and I understand that. But I've got to tell you that if somebody comes out of the corporate sector, I am absolutely bewildered that it takes nine months to close out a calendar fiscal year for a city government of $2.2 billion in revenue and expenditures. It just doesn't make any sense. So, could we do something innovative? Could we say that the city of Jacksonville is going to set us a goal to report its financial results within 30 days – I'm sorry, within 90 days of the quarter – of the fiscal year? So, by December 31st, we will have our audited results reporting the results of the fiscal year that ends September 30th. What would that take? City Council amending the charter? What do we have to do? No, I don't think it would be amending the charter. So, the fiscal year ends September 30th, and we do continually improve how fast we can close the books. But once we close the books, if you want audited, like we – our objective was to get the trial balance to our auditors in the middle of January. When that happens, then the audit process takes a while also. So, eventually, I think the best thing that the city can aim for, and I think in the past it has happened, is getting everything done and the audit out by March 31st. So, that's still six months after the end. I don't know if there are many city governments or county governments that do it any faster than that. Now, maybe down the road, I mean, AI can be a big thing, and there are certain processes that might help speed things up, but it's still going to take human oversight. So, again, it comes down to what's really desired and what resources you need in order to accomplish. So, you've referenced resources. I think that's about the fifth time you've used that word. Do you mean human personnel? Do you mean faster computers, computers with more memory? No, I'm really meaning – Which of those aspects? Is it a software issue? Is it a personnel issue? I wouldn't say it's software issues. I think if you look at the history of how fast we've managed to close since we implemented OneCloud, we've gotten a lot faster because, you know, we had used the old system for at least 15 or more years, and to have that kind of massive change, it took us a while to get the first ACFA out. So, the fact that we now do it on time and beat the June 30th deadline is good. So, we have good software, and as I mentioned, we're continually learning how to use it better, and we are going to be able to do some other things using embedded AI, maybe to get some reports faster. But people, it has to be more people, and also what's – You don't need more people to operate a computer system. The computers aren't a problem, and learning the software is key, and certain things we can do faster if you've got AI pulling it out for you. But I don't think we have a software problem or a hardware problem. It's what's really desired, and you have to staff for it. How many people do you need? Well, we, as Brian indicated, there are financial people throughout the city. In my division, which is accounting, I have 50 full-time FTEs and three part-time, and we are incredibly busy. There's a number of things that we do. So, I'm hearing you, and I've asked this question. Are we just simply understaffed? It seems like every city department, they need more people, but they don't get more people. We're 300 police officers short in the sheriff's office, and every year, he'll come back and ask for 60 or 70, and he's lucky to get 40. And every year, we fall further and further and further and further and behind in the ratio of law enforcement officers per 1,000 people. From what I'm picking up, and it's not just you, it's every single person, every single department that has come and spoken before this commission since I've been on it, which I'm heading up on, I think, five years. There's this subliminal message of we just don't have enough people. I think the other way of looking at that message is we keep being asked to do more and more things with the same number of people or fewer people. Thank you. I've dominated the discussion long enough. Does anybody else have any? Mr. Bass? How's it going? Real quick, can I get your name again? Council Auditor's office. What's the last name? Parks, B-A-R-K-S. I've never seen you before, and I had to look at you like four times because I thought you were Kevin Carrico. But yes. You wouldn't be the first person. Yes. So did I. I walked in. Kevin's with us today. And then my second thing is I completely understand what you're saying. With the staffing issue. You know, I met with the chief of mowing and landscape. And one of the big things with city government is we only have so much money to go around. And the private sector and the public sector are two completely different things when it comes to payroll. Y'all aren't paid number one in the world, nor is it costs. You know, somebody that may work this one job in the public sector as far as government. In the private sector, that job may be paid double. And would that be a true assessment? In your opinion? I think it's probably accurate that in many cases city government people are not paid as well as they could be in industry. Yes. And so some of the staff shortfall, that's just some of the things that I've heard. Like with the chief of mowing and landscaping, we do a lot of subcontracting. And so that kind of helps with the payroll part because they make based on what they're going to charge the city. And then when it comes to the officer standpoint, my brother, he was a retired police officer. He got out early because of the kind of cultural thing on police officers. Not everybody wants to be a police officer right now. It's not a popular thing. And so that actually ties in a lot because JSO is pumping out the funding. They keep coming back for a bigger budget for more funding to pay them and getting back on FRS and all that. But that's completely off topic. But there are reasons why the understaffing, and it goes specifically to each department, is different. Obviously, your department is going to be different than mowing and landscaping. And so I'm just very appreciative because I know you all are underpaid and understaffed. But I know there's some things we can work on, but I feel like that's going to be on an individual level and working with you individually on your departments. And so anyways, I just wanted to share my appreciation, and I look forward to working with you any way we can. Thank you, and I think, as I mentioned, I'm really proud of my team. They do a great job, and they are very enthusiastic. And people don't work for the government, as you're indicated, because of money because we don't want to go work for selling Pepsi. I mean, my favorite soft drink is Coke, but I don't want to go work for them. Any other questions? Thank you, everybody, for being here. We're seven minutes behind schedule, but this is just something that we're digging into on a methodical basis. And we will continue the process, and we may ask you to come back again. And in the interim, I will do some exploring on how I can find the numbers that I'm seeking. So thank you very much. So the spending committee will adjourn. We will take a two-minute break, a three-minute break. We'll come back at 440 as the full commission. On the agenda is a presentation. Mr. Parks, are you going to also talk about the data from that? That's why I'm here is on the grants piece. So on our agenda is discussion of the data on the public grant, and I don't see he's excused. Okay. And then our other two items on the agenda are the council auditor reports, 902 and 903 audits of the supervisor of elections and the, I believe it was the tax collector. I don't know what time. I-95 was a parking lot. So I went up US-1. Well, it moved better than 95 was moving, but I think whatever the bottleneck was, it was clear. And then 95 started to move. Mr. Bass, it's 441. We'll call the meeting of the true commission for Thursday, April 9th, 2026 to order. We met previously as a spending committee. We are now in session as the full commission. We have a quorum, I believe. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I understand we've lost a member. Is that correct, Colleen? Okay. Yeah, Ms. Letizia. Okay. We have how many excused absences? Two, Mr. Lures and Ms. Roundsville. Who was Andrea representing, CPAC or? She was a city council president appointed. I think Ron appointed her, if I remember correctly. She was a council appointee, yes. All right. Okay. Has anybody had a chance to review the minutes of the last month's meeting? Mr. Nooney, you're not recognized. This is a meeting of the true commission. You're not a member of the true commission. Mr. Nooney, you need to have a seat. If you have a concern, I would suggest you direct it to Ms. Hampsey to be sent to me or to speak to one of the commissioners individually before or after the meeting. All right. So, we will move forward with today's agenda. We are having a follow-up discussion on the methodology for determining the sampling of that public service grant report that Mr. Carter summarized last month. Let's take some time, Mr. Parks. If you would present your information and then at least we'll have it for the record that Mr. Lures can avail himself of that information. And I did find a recording of our meetings and they're pretty extensive. So, you can use as much detail as you want and then we can go back and listen to it. They don't produce a transcript, though. Is that correct? Okay. You could use a software and just make it dictate if you wanted a written transcript. But you do. The recordings are pretty good. High quality. All right. Thank you. You'll proceed. Brian Parks, Counselor's Office. And I will say, as I've actually provided all that, Tommy already forwarded on the information I have here, including the data itself and stuff like that. So, to Mr. Lures. Okay. And he's received it? Right. Has he given any feedback on how he's utilized it? He said that he's received it. He has not done any analysis with it yet. He wanted Mr. Parks to kind of go over that with you guys today. And he will be doing his analysis and coming back in May to speak about it. Before he starts, is this the portion where I think we formed a committee last time and several of us were on the committee? Yes. And if so, why would only Mr. Lures get it if that's the case instead of the entire committee who was going to be part of the committee? I was one of them. He's chair of the committee. It would be up to him to disseminate the information through Colleen to the members of the committee. This is, I mean, I love the Sunshine Law, but it does serve as an operational obstacle sometimes for deliberation. No, I understand that Mr. Lures can't send it to me and I can't send it to Mr. Bass. No. But my question is, why did it go to Mr. Lures and not to all of us, me, Bass, Lures, and whoever else was on the committee? We should have all received this information since we were on the committee, at least I would think. That's a fair statement. Is it possible to disseminate the information to all those on the committee? And you have a list of the people that volunteered for that committee? I can forward it to the entire commission if that would just make it easier to miss anybody. So I would think in the future, if there's some data being sent, that I would just request that we all get it, not just Mr. Lures or not just me. I will just clarify, there were specific questions in there that we were responding to, so necessarily responding those back to everybody else becomes a little bit complicated sometimes. So keep that in mind where there was more than just data, there were specific questions. And when we're answering those questions, we can get into an area, as the committee member Day has mentioned, you can get into Sunshine Law issues and stuff like that. But they can forward on the data and I can maybe word it slightly different just so it's more generic, so it can be passed along. So I'll get that across to everybody, or I'll get it over to Colleen so she can sign it out. Do you want to kind of give us a summary of your findings? So, and again, as I understood it, it was kind of presented on the methodology we used. So I'm going to kind of split this into two parts. First is because we had two different objectives. We had an objective one that was looking at payments, and objective two was looking at the monitoring procedures and everything else that the grants office was doing. So first off, our first objective was to determine whether the grants and contract compliance division properly, accurately, and timely paid recipients of the public service grants and direct contracts. So I just want to remind everybody it is the direct contracts. And that's a terminology that may not make sense. And sometimes there are awards to nonprofits that are approved directly by council to them. Those were included in this sample size. So, and just a reminder back to what Tommy presented last meeting is the grants and contract, our conclusion on that was the grants and contract compliance division, timely paid recipients of public service grants and direct contracts. However, we found significant issues with the payments not being made properly and accurately based based on the supporting documentation maintained by the division. So our scope of that audit was, for that objective, was October 1, 21 through March 31, 23, based on when we had started the work. That's why it's kind of in that odd time frame. The population was $11 million in payments to 60 different entities. So from there, we do a sample. And so we selected the sample size. Given the population size, we could go ahead and do a statistical. And we selected them at random. Based on statistical size, we selected 87 invoices for testing, which was a coverage of $1.4 million in payments on 54 different contracts to 37 different entities. So we're covering a good chunk of the different things, which makes us feel good about that piece. Do you have a question? So in terms of auditing standards, you're meeting the threshold in terms of dollar volume and the number of items? Yes. And I will say is you may be more familiar with like a financial standards. This is we follow performance audit standards of GAGIS, which is slightly different. But yes, we're always going to look to make sure we're not getting skewed just to one grant. And I'll get into another one where it was a much smaller. The next objective, smaller sample size, I mean population. So we we needed to go judgmentally and like to kind of make sure we were grabbing a piece that was representative. As opposed to a random sample, there is sort of a qualitative sample. Yeah. And again, now we did select the 87 invoices themselves at random. But but we compare that back to make sure we're comfortable with. That's why we look at how many different contracts are we covering, how many different, you know what I mean? Because we want to make sure it's not skewed to just one place or the other. And so in general, we hope that we never have to go ahead and add something. And is what we would typically do if we felt like it was not enough. We would add on top of because we wouldn't want to remove something that that kind of can lead its way to like looking like we're, you know, height. You know what I mean? It's much better just to add on to testing and stuff like that in that example. So for those 87 invoices on our sample, we tested whether each was supported with proper documentation that was uploaded into the accounting system, which we were just talking about. And with detailed documentation kept by the divisions, there are certain records that they have over there that's not uploaded. We also tested whether payments were reviewed and approved by the division. Next, we reviewed the supporting documentation and grant agreements to determine whether the payments were allowable, sufficiently supported, and accurately. And then lastly, we checked if the payments were made in a timely manner. For all the payments in our population, we did review to identify any potential duplicate payments. So like this is where we do some analyticals on the full population. We do different things to say like is this an invoice number being repeated, same vendor and everything else to kind of identify. And then we will go in and research those to see if there's anything to identify. And a purchase order was created for the correct entity, too. We also look to make sure that the name of the grant awards matched up with the entity itself. Thank you, Chair. So you did 87 samples. Of that 87, were there any two or three of the same person or the same entity? In other words, did you have three from me and one from him and two from him? And that's what, yes. So when I mentioned that there were 54 different contracts covered to 37 different entities. So for sure, so that 54 versus the 87, because it's a contract to an invoice. Because you can actually have multiple entities have, you know, an entity have multiple contracts. So we had some of that. And then we also have some of where we might have had a sample from two invoices for the same entity as well. So what was the highest number per entity that you may have seen? Three, four, 10, 15? I would have to. And who were those entities? Like the top three entities that you've seen, more than one, that you looked at, who was that entity? Okay. I do not have the information in that form right now. I mean, and that's what I can forward to you after. I absolutely, what I'll send to you, and I'm sorry, I apologize for you not having an advance, is it has every single sample we did. It has the population of every single payment. It has the sample for everyone, which includes the grant, the name of the entity, the PO, what it was for. And then we also break down the findings, so that every entity by the findings. So if you see an internal control weakness, one has a, it mentions that we had issues with, let's say, eight different entities. You will see what those eight entities were specifically and stuff like that. So I would like to see, if you can send it to Colleen to send us, I would like to see everyone that you picked. Surely it's somewhere, right? No, no, I'm looking at it. Yeah, and send that to us. Well, if you're looking at it, if you had to guess who the top three are, or is it too hard to do that right now? It's not sorted that way, so let me see if I can sort it that way. Because it's literally by, it gets assigned a number, basically. And so, but let me see if. And these are invoices that you sampled? Yes, they are invoices. Let me examine these invoices. What was the total number of invoices? 87, right? No, for the $11 million, I don't, the total, that should be about 743. Invoices? Yeah. The $11 million was the dollar amount of the 87 invoices. No, no, the $11 million is for the 740. Yes, the $1.4 million is what we tested. Out of, for which was the 87 invoices? Yes. And it was $1,400,000 in round numbers? Yes, yep. Thank you. Right. And then I think if you can, would you like to see the spread? Yeah, I mean. The 87, and then what was identified on each one? Yeah. Yeah, I would like to see. I think that would be helpful. What I want to see is, did you see seven from me and one from him and 10 from him? I mean, there is absolutely, like, I'm looking through, like, Ability Housing had three. Claire White Mission had five different invoices that popped up. Family Foundations of Northeast Florida had seven, you know, but then, like, First Coast Crime Stoppers might have only had one. Now, does it also show who, for lack of better words, who the CEO of those entities are? I mean, who's behind? No, we do not. We do not maintain that. But if you could send that information, and possibly before the next meeting, I don't want to wait until the day before the next meeting to get it, maybe next week or something. I will get an e-mail to Colleen. I'd love to look at that. By the end of, by midnight tonight, so. Thank you, sir. Let me ask a question. So, these $11 million, this is what was funded from the public service grant process? Not just that. Okay. It could also include the direct contracts. Remember, the direct contracts that are directly approved by city council. And that's the only way those are awarded. So, it's either PSG, which is the funding approved by council, and then it's awarded by the public service grants council, or it's a direct appropriation and an award from city council. And these contract for services, would these include Kids Hope Alliance? No, that's a separate one. You perform a separate audit of Kids Hope Alliance? The last audit we did of them was about five or six years ago, if not longer at this point. And that was actually on their grants that they receive, and we were making sure that they were utilizing the funds properly through that method. And they've not been audited since five years ago? Again, we, as a thing, the city is a very large audit. We have a staff of 10 auditors that work with me as we stop during the summer for the budget. So, no, we have not been able to be back out there on another piece. There has been certain coverage also as well, because we look at what the IG's, Inspector General's Office, does related to those. And then also, when we were auditing those awards, like of what this is, a lot of what we were getting into is also how they were contract oversight of what they had awarded. So, it covered a lot of things. And we had a lot of findings back then, and they've put in a lot of improvements. We have already followed up on that to see that they've implemented everything we had from that audit. So, it's $11 million of grants and contracts total. For, that had actual payments within that 18-month period, yes. What would be the breakout of grants versus contracts? Like, of the $11 million, how much were grants and how much were contracts? Do you have those numbers? You're saying of how they were awarded of PSG. I mean, they're both, they're all grants. So, there is not like a, you're saying of what the awarding authority is. I thought I heard you say you audited contracts. You only audited grants. These were all grants, yes. Just grants. Okay. So, make sure. The office is, I can understand, the office is called, like, grants and contract compliance. And that, you might have heard me, like, that's why that terminology. Which falls under the Department of Finance. It's the Finance Department, yes. The Finance Department. Yes. Through the chair real quick again. You may have said this. You did, there's a lot of information you gave us. I appreciate it. Like, were these, you said they were randomly? Absolutely. So, one percent random, no request to look at mine or his? No. Just randomly? Absolutely not. Okay. And I'll be clear on this. So, keep in mind, the staff that's actually doing this piece, they don't get involved in it. Like, they're just doing that work. Now, I will review and approve the parameters. Like, that's how even my involvement gets into it. It's like, there are certain things when you're doing a statistical sample, like, where you're selecting, you have to have, like, a, what confidence level you think, what the tall board, like, there's different things. And that's where I'm going to come into play and stuff like that. But it's not on the individual selection. I'll make sure that we have good coverage on the overall dollar amounts. But it's not going to pick certain entities and stuff like that, yes. Yep. And I will say, is I have another objective to go over when we're done with this one. We're not going to, we're going to take our time on this. Okay. Yeah. Because this is a lot of, there's a lot of interest on this subject by the members of this commission. Just a quick question. On a typical audit, I mean, nothing's typical, obviously. Every department's different based on different sizes. But how long does it typically take? Because, just to give you an example of why I'm asking, the chief of mowing and landscape, when I was meeting with him, and we met multiple times, and one of the things he said was, they're still auditing me. Or they're still checking, going over stuff. We're following up. Following up. And so that's. So that's the thing is, like, it's, we can do every audit in the world, but it's pointless if they don't go and address the issues. And that's why we follow up until it's done. And we are currently doing the first follow-up of that mowing. And the timing on when we do those depends on risks associated with things. Like this grant audit, we're going to probably follow up on sooner than we may have. Because of the significance of the items that were noted during there. And the office, if you go to their responses, they've indicated they've already started implementing these things. Because that's what we want to go over so we can validate that they've actually implemented. We don't trust anybody. Like, they tell us we did it. Half the time we'll go out there and we might find out, eh, maybe they haven't quite got it there yet. So is it just one follow-up or it can be multiple? It can be four. It can be, you know, it's whatever it takes to get it done. Right. And that's, and we do get to a reasonable list. Now, the only time we may get into a, the entire system has changed. Like, if you audited one payroll system, you may go, we're down these last two. We want to go in and do a new audit of the payroll and start fresh. And so sometimes that'll occur. Okay, that's great. It's still closing. Yeah, I just, I only asked that and I'm glad you followed up with that because one of the things, like, for instance, as far as following up, when they do a landscape or mowing check, they'll follow up one time, you know, and check something. And then even if it's done or not, they're doing that one follow-up, you know. And so I just wanted to make sure it's something that we're regularly following up on until completion. So that's great. Thank you. Questions? Next item. Yep. All right. So Objective 2 was on the monitoring piece. And so now we're looking at monitoring the contract itself. And sometimes it's even monitoring the entity itself because even if they have two grants, you're really monitoring certain, there are certain procedures that they do that only apply to that. So based on that, I'm skipping ahead. Let me get to the objective real quick. The objective was to determine whether the grants and contract compliance division properly monitor the compliance of recipients of public service grants and direct contracts. Our conclusion on that was that they did not properly monitor whether public service and grants and contract recipients, direct contract recipients. I now know why you're hearing me at contract as I'm saying it. It's still a grant whenever I say contract in that case. And we're in compliance with the terms of their agreements. This scope, because we needed to look at monitoring for it, is only one year because you need to see a beginning and an end. If you don't see that, you're kind of missing on a monitoring piece. And so with this, there were 65 grants to 46 different entities during that 12 months with an award amount of $11 million. Now, please keep in mind that does not mean payment. That just means they were awarded $11 million. That's why you might go, well, I heard $11 million on payments there. That doesn't make sense. You would think it's more because it's the difference in timing. And so we had to, because of this being at a size of 65 grants with this, we decided to select, first off, any grant that had received any grant award greater than $500,000. And there were four of those. Because given the dollar amount, it's significant enough that those need to be a part of the monitoring because we need to make sure. From there, we selected at random eight other grants to give us a total of 12 different grants. This was coverage of $5 million of that total $11 million to kind of give you an idea of coverage, which is going to make sense because we selected those four largest. So for those 12 grants in our sample, we tested if quarterly monitoring was performed properly by varying, finding that forms were filled out and signed by the grant recipients. Forms were reviewed by the division staff. Goals listed in the quarterly reports were matched. The goals that were actually in the contract application, which sometimes they didn't, as many of these things, goals were met by the end of the grant term. For goals not met, we checked if an explanation was provided and inquired about actions taken by staff and assessed those for reasonableness. Also, for those 12 grant recipients, we confirmed that the annual review was performed properly by verifying that the forms were filled out by the division staff. That would be the grants and contract compliance division. The grades passed, failed, not applicable, and the sources cited for each were reasonable. Forms were filled out accurately. Conclusions on overall compliance were reasonable. Actions were, again, taken if there were more than one fail. Performance data reported on the third quarter forms were verified as part of that. Based on timing when they were doing the annual reviews, they should have been verifying that third quarter. We were testing if they were doing that. Now, even with all that, we still actually tested for all 65 grants in our population. That quarterly monitoring was performed by the division by just pulling stuff to see if there was actually a quarterly monitoring report on file. We also, for all 46 grant recipients, which is the individual recipients themselves, we confirmed the annual monitoring was performed by the division at least. Somebody at least went and did that. We didn't necessarily test every piece in it, but we wanted to make sure that they were at least going and doing what they, you know, showing up there. We also reviewed the annual template to make sure that what testing procedures they were doing and verifying made sense and were being updated based on current things. Lastly, we tested compliance with Chapter 118. You'll hear that terminology. That's like our city grants policies. There's certain things on, like, what city grants cannot be spent for. We made sure that they were following those terms. We also tested that the total amounts listed on the last monthly invoice for each line item agreed to the sum of the prior month and stuff like that, and that everything kind of pulled forward in a proper way. So that's kind of a general overview of what we did with this piece. And I would just kind of – you asked about length of time a little bit, and I kind of want to hit on this. This audit looked at a lot of stuff and a lot of grants. And you could have easily – Right, right. But it's – you could easily have broken especially that objective. You could have an audit for each one of those grants. And, yes, but we also want to make sure that we're not skewing things because if you look at one grant, you might think things are really good or things are really bad and not have a proper, you know, assessment of everything. And so we want to make sure that we're looking at kind of a, you know, good, you know, sample of things that can help us draw a conclusion that helps us meet our audit standards. But it just – it gives a city council and the public, I think, a better idea of what's going on there. So. I do have a question. So through the chair to the council auditor. So when somebody – you said awarded versus – what was the terminology you used? Awarded versus paid. Paid, okay. So, for instance, if they said – your analogy you're giving here is that if they're awarded that and they're saying you're going to get that, you just – we just haven't paid you yet. You're going to get it on a specific date or – Maybe. No. Okay. I'm only wondering because with the budget when – I'm trying – I'm blanking right now with the wording that we have on the budget when it's going over to the next physically. So some of these grants – and so there are some of them that would have been crossing periods. They could have had a carry forward language in there. So it may be a – there are some of them that could have been on a 7-1 to 6-30 because it was a direct contract awarded in the summer. Okay. Or executed. So there are different ways that can go. This is a bit different. So PSGs by Chapter 118, they're done on 9-30. There is no carry forward. Okay. The direct contracts could have them. Now, when you get into the mowing contract, that's where there can be certain monies that are encumbered. That's a different type of law that comes into play and that's – That's what I was – I was wondering with that line item on the budget if that was part of – There's a piece not on these grants but on other things where if an amount is encumbered by year-end per the municipal code, it can be carried forward. But it can only be utilized for that purpose. And some of that's based on contract timing so that you can execute the contract and get those through. That's why that occurs. Okay. Thank you. Questions? Questions at this end. So you're – this last part we've been discussing, the $4 million was monitored. Are you reviewed for monitoring purposes a total grants of $4 million? Is that $5 million? Okay. And how many grants were represented in that $5 million? That'd be 12. 12 grants? 12 of the 65. 12 of the 65. And what were – can you identify those 12 grants? Sure. If you want to, I'll go ahead and read them. I'd like to know which 12 – which entities you reviewed that comprised the 12 grants? Yep. Goodwill. And so I'm going to kind of tell you how they were selected real quick, too. That's first eight. Is this an audit or is this what Lewer's requested? This is the update he's providing us. This was in the audit piece. The only thing I provided to them was data from the – like what we tested and everything else. But, yes, you'll get this. This will be a tab in the spreadsheets that I send over and stuff like it. But it was Goodwill Industries of North Florida. How much? The grant award was $225,000. Okay. Cure Violence Global of $150,000. I'm sorry, who? Cure Violence Global. That was a part of, like, the mayor's Cure Violence program. That was one of the entities there. And this was under previous mayor? Yeah. This period is 21-22. Yes, all under the previous. Everything in the audit was under the prior administration. And we have – and I don't necessarily get into the mayor piece. There were actually five different heads of the Grants and Contract Compliance Division while we were conducting this audit, which also causes delays as we're kind of going – you know what I mean? There was – we also had some things where somebody was out on FMLA, but there's some different things that cause. And so there was a lot of change over different ways. It went from an office to a division. So there was a lot of turnover there. So I don't remember – Cure Violence was the last one I think I just mentioned, right? I have a follow-up question. So through the Chair to Council Auditor, with the Goodwill – you said Goodwill of – Goodwill Industries of North Oregon. Goodwill Industries, yeah. So does it have on there anywhere – you might have already said this – does it say there aren't anywhere what they requested the grant for? So in this spreadsheet and stuff – so keep in mind I have seven binders of audit, of work papers. There's tons of work papers that we go through related to. And so we are going through every contract. Yes, the contract is going to tell what it is. In this spreadsheet, do I have what – let me see. I may – I have the ordinance that authorized it. That Goodwill was the academics – yeah, we – so in the spreadsheet, in the population piece, whenever we send that out, it will have the program name that will at least give you some sort of idea. That is the A-STEP program. I don't know if any of you guys have ever heard. That's the academic support through employment process. That started five, six years ago underneath Council Member Bowman, actually. And what was the – how much – what was the amount for them? That one was $225,000. And who was the council member? That would not have been that year. The direct contract, I couldn't tell you when this year. I'm just saying where funding started at some point. No problem. Thank you. Yep. The next one was the Clara White Mission, 100 – 200 – I'm sorry. I've got to get into – the contract selected for testing, $150,000. Family Support Services of Northeast Florida, $150,000. Lutheran Social Services, $149,683. We Care Jacks, $150,000. The Potter's House Christian Fellowship, $800,000. And Northeast Florida Sober Living Alliance, $25,000. And I'm realizing I think the order of operations on this is slightly off of what I said. We did the eight, and then we selected the over $500,000 because the next four are the ones over $500,000, which is Reintegration Solutions, Inc. of Jacksonville, Bridges for $800,000. Bridges to the Cure, Inc., $800,000. Operation New Hope, $600,000. And I am Salzbacher Center for the Homeless, $931,300. And so some of those can be through PSGs, D.C., direct contracts, and stuff like that. And that's – well, the ones over $500,000, by definition, are all going to be direct contracts because a PSG at the time would have been limited to $150,000. So through the chair, so – and you may have said this as well. So if you added all the grants, I guess, per year, this budget, how many millions is it? So for what was in the population of what could have been – it's not necessarily every grant because, again, we don't include the Kids Hope Alliance and stuff like that. No, forget the Kids Hope Alliance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the grant piece on there was $11 million. So we have $11 million with this, and then some – I've heard different numbers, $63 million with KHA. I'm not going to – that seems reasonable. It might be in the – that number has changed quite a bit over the years, and I don't really always – I've heard several numbers myself, but some are in that area. Yeah, and, again, there's other grants in the city as well that aren't just these either. But we hadn't been into the grants and contract compliance, and that's why we focused in – we were focusing on which ones they were monitoring. We did not include – I will make a point of clarity – was the grant to the Cultural Service Council that was not a part of this because that's an entirely other process. It's, again, we're just trying to make sure – because once it gets too much else, we're adding in other things, and that can even cause longer time for the audit to get out. The total of these grants over the last five years, do you have any data on what the – for comparison purposes, what was it in fiscal, let's say, 21, 22, 24, and 25, the last four fiscal years? Public service grants, I can have some sort of number, and that's roughly been at the $7 million, I think, for the last several years. It's been relatively static. Yeah. The problem is direct contracts can fluctuate quite a bit, and then you also have – like, when it gets into the overall grant, like, I think it was Ms. Lockhart, who several years ago underneath the private administration worked on a project of pulling every single grant within the city of what we award or what we pay to nonprofits, and that number is very large. Like, that's not – because we don't keep records in that way necessarily, that's not something I can easily provide because it's not – sometimes a nonprofit may be bidding on a contract, and it's not through a grant method and stuff like that. So, the – like, if you're talking about in this bucket, this amount has risen at times, it has dropped at times and stuff like that. But I can pull separately out of here, and I can send over for the public service grants what city councils approved for the last five years, if you'd like. Do you have the ability to pull the grants, the total dollar amount of the grants, and if an organization has one grant, two grants, three grants? I would be interested to know of the entities with which our current city council members are associated, what is the total dollar amount of grants or grant over the last four years? I can't – I don't know the answer to what all non – you know what I mean? Entities that they may or may not be associated with. So, if I may, that's the purpose of this subcommittee that you formed is to make those connections. That's not what the auditors do. They do the numbers, delving into who the CEO is or who's on the board of whatnot. That's your job. Okay. So, the information that was provided to you, will the subcommittee be able to make that determination from that information? I didn't even look at those files, to be honest with you. They'll know the names, but you may know who those people – It's pretty easy. It'll have the name of the organization, and then you have to do the – We just go back into the minutes of the council meeting, and they each excuse themselves when their organization comes up for a vote. There's a number of ways that you can identify. And then the city council approves the grant, and then the next organization that comes up, that member of the council recuses him or herself from the vote, and the previous council member who recused himself or herself then votes to approve that grant. That's sort of how they're playing the musical chairs of funding their various organizations without directly voting on the appropriation. There's an actual item on the city council agenda where they pull out separate before they pass the final city budget. And then they – because each of those items pass, they're in the final budget. Then when they take that final vote, they can all vote in total on the – they can vote yes on the total city budget without having directly voted to fund their organization. That's the process they use. You're talking about conflict bills. So they do park out parts of the budget that some people can't vote on to make it – Yeah, they identify, they have a conflict, and then they don't vote. And the other council members who are involved with nonprofits, they vote yes. So it gets put in the city budget, and they go to the final vote, and bingo, bingo. City budget's been adopted, including all the funding of the grants to the various nonprofits with which city council members are associated. That's the process. Any other – That's kind of what I wanted to see was with our city officials, whether it be council or whoever, how many of those are associated with those grants? But you're not able to tell them. We'll have to dig that out. Yeah, I mean, that would not be a part of – That's fine. But when you give her the names of these, we can dig that out. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty easy. I mean, we sort of know just anecdotally which council member is with which nonprofit. But you just go through the list and say, okay, that one goes to Mr. Howland, that one goes to Mr. Carrico, that one goes to Ms. Pittman, et cetera. All right. Any other questions or comments? Okay. We are on questions for the presenter, which runs down through 525. It is now 517. Any follow-up questions that you'd like to ask while he's here? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Tommy, why don't we take this time for you to go over reports 902 and 903? Actually, I have four reports to – Oh, okay. Or five reports to cover. 903 I won't cover because that has not been presented to the Finance Committee yet. It came out, I believe, yesterday. Is that the one on the tax collector? That's the one on the Clerk of the Courts. Clerk of the Courts. Yes. And so that one I'll have to present at the May True Commission meeting due to it not being presented yet to the Finance Committee. However, the True Commission – the Council Auditor's Office has released five reports since the last True Commission meeting. We released report number 857A, which was a follow-up on the Equestrian Center Audit. That was released March 5th of 2026. This was the first follow-up on the Equestrian Center Audit. There were four issues in the audit, and all four issues were cleared on this. What were the issues? Brief summary. Brief summary. They weren't monitoring – they weren't properly monitoring like there were overpayments. They weren't – there was – let's see. I'm trying to think here. They did not sufficiently enforce the terms of the contract to ensure that the payments were properly supported. They were – or accurate or authorized. There was some insurance, lack of support for reimbursements. There was a lack of insurance requirements, things like that in the first – in the original audit. So, for instance, the Equestrian Center, let's say that they have a contract to supply so many pounds of sweet feed over the course of the year to feed horses. And does the city own horses out there, or simply people board their horses out there? I don't believe the city owns horses out there. I believe it's a boarding, and it's also for events, you know, rodeos, things like that, horse shows. So then when the Equestrian Center makes a payment under that contract, they don't have a supporting invoice to support the check that was issued? Well, it was – and then how do they not account for overpayments? It was reimbursement – well, it was one of the issues. In the original audit, there was an Excel spreadsheet they were using. It wasn't always – it was inaccurate in places and things like that. So there were some overpayments and or underpayments that we picked up in the first audit. We went back and we looked and reviewed. They've made changes to their tracking. Now they keep a running total of the amount that the council approves each year that – for the payment of the contract and things out there. They've – anything – one of the issues was insurance requirements. They didn't have the right insurance requirements. They do now, you know, according to risk management and things like that, that we look to ensure that they are now doing. And the Equestrian Center comes under the Department of Parks and Recreation. Yes. Okay. Is there – does the Equestrian Center operate as a division within that department? No. How does it report functionally up to the department directly? It's part of the – they have a contract administrator. They have an administrator, an accountant that works with the Equestrian Center and North Florida Equestrian Society, who's the manager out there, things like that. And it's all – comes in as part of parks, and then it runs up the chain through parks, through the parks department, up to the director, things like that. So it's not a separate division? No. Do we know how much the overpayment was across – From the original audit, I don't remember the exact amount. I know it was – I think it was accounted for, and it was made whole. So you recouped it? Yeah. No further questions on that one? I'll move on to the next one. Please do. Okay. The second – it was report number 726-D. This is the follow-up – this is the fourth follow-up on the Municipal Code Compliance Division Revenue Audit. So it was released on March 6, 2026. Kind of to your point, Commissioner Bass, we keep going until things are finally done. This is the fourth time going out there. There were two items remaining from the third follow-up, and these items were cleared. The two remaining issues from the third follow-up was that they were receiving payments directly rather than directing the payments be made to the tax collector's office. And so they had a lack of segregation of duties there. And then the other one was access rights for the former employees. It's the same old access rights that we had. Former employees could still have access, and those were addressed and fixed. So you said that, through the chair to the council auditor, you said that they were taking payments directly instead of it going directly to the tax collector? Correct. So how were they taking the – so people were writing them a check or – Well, it was just – To the city of Jacksonville or things like that. And then they would deposit it with the tax collector's office to get – the division would, rather than it being going directly to the tax collector's office and, you know, sending it to the tax collector. It caused a delay, delays the deposit that way. And also the division didn't have the proper segregation of duties to be properly handling checks coming in. So was that because the division chief just didn't have it organized enough or – Well, I mean, you may have had one person – I did not read the original audit. You may have had one person – let me see here, the notes. The – I don't know how real it was that it was not – they weren't – they weren't following the cash handling procedures for the city. One person coming in, one person receives a deposit, another person – or one person receives a check, one person prepares a deposit, another person, you know, deposits it, things like that. There's various – there's separate – We have rules and procedures for all of this, and they were just like, just do what we want to do over here. Well, I – Which division is it? I won't make that assumption. Yes, yes. I don't know what they – Exactly. All I know is that they weren't – it was not being properly done. Which division was this? This was the Municipal Code Compliance Division. I – so that they impose a fine if somebody's not in compliance with the city code. Correct. And then they are – and they should issue a citation. Is that the process? And then the individual who's being fined should take the citation to the tax collector's office and pay the fine. Correct. And – They were coming – And personnel from this division were accepting payment. Correct. Do we know if people were being paid cash? We don't – I don't know that. From the original audit, I don't know from the – from C. I do know that – And so our – the city procedures are that if you – if you are going to make a payment pursuant to a citation, like when I get a parking ticket, I don't walk up to the parking division and hand the guy a check. I take it down to Mr. Overton's office and pay them. I go through – wait until one of the windows opens up, and then I, you know, pay it and, you know, take care of it that way. But that wasn't happening here. It did not appear to be happening here. Right. Which is why I was – So the personnel don't know that they're not allowed to take money? So when did this audit start? When did this begin? Is this a long time ago? We were talking last week? No, this was quite a while ago. Okay. I don't know the exact time. Do you know the year? I'd have to look that up. Okay. Can we move on to the next audit? Yes. Do we know how much the audit value is of – I don't – I do not – I'm compliant. All right. Okay. Didn't pull C. I just – usually when we get to this point and when we're – when they're cleared, it's – they've changed and have implemented our recommendations. Or else there's been a new person hired that knows what they're doing. Yes, that's why it's crucial to me that we know the need. I – Yeah. Could you provide that supplemental information to us? Of when the audit was done? Yes, sir. Yeah. You want to know the total dollar volume? I will see if it's in the audit. It's not – Well, I would hope that somewhere in the audit there's a summation of the dollar value of items audited. I will see what's in the audit. When it was in the dollar value. Chris, are you an accounting major? Stephanie, you're an accountant. Are you an accounting major? No. Business. Third report is report number 856B. This is the follow-up on the electronic funds transfers in audit. This was our second follow-up. The first – the original audit had six findings. There were four issues cleared with the first follow-up. There were no issues cleared on this follow-up. So, there still remains two issues outstanding. The issue – What types of issues or – what types of issues did you find? The two that are outstanding is that deposits are not always recorded timely in the financial system. In the original audit, we identified issues with the timing when deposits were not processed by the tax collector's office because payments were sent directly to the Treasury Division. Out of 643 deposits tested, 392 were recorded in the city's financial system over 15 days from the date the payments were deposited. What's the total dollar volume involved here? Do you know? I don't know the total dollar value – volume. I do know that it says we were unable to confirm if 45 out of 62 deposits tested totaled $478,000, which had been recorded in the city's. Where would this money have originated? These are electronic. These are electronic into the Treasury. Okay, so who is making the payment of the – I just – I mean, I'm using this new device that they've taken out all the parking meters, and I walk up, and I have the app, and I just – and it knows where I am based on GPS, and the little number comes up, and I press it, and then I hit Apple Pay, and off it goes. Where does that money go once I send it to Apple Pay? Does it go directly to the tax collector, or does it go to DIA, who has responsibility for downtown parking? That's a good question. So anyway, we have $400,000. That was finding one that was still outstanding. The supplemental finding was user accounts of terminated employees not deactivated. We found a total of 331 user accounts belong to terminated employees were still active in the system. Per the city's information and technology division, the only way to log into the system is through a single sign-on by using a valid active directory account per ITD. Upon termination, these employees' accounts were disabled in the active directory by ITT's security team. We go on to say that even though terminated employees were removed from the active directory, these employees could be rehired, and their single sign-on restored, which could unintentionally grant access to systems that rehired employees may not need. So ITD's saying, well, we disabled their sign-on. We're saying, okay, well, if they were rehired, and they had the same sign-on, they could have – and they were a different department. They could still have access to this, and so they agreed, and they're going to look at trying to find a reconciliation process to ensure that user accounts are adequately trued up. Didn't you report to the true commission on this same thing about three years ago? I remember something about user IDs and – I've reported – I've reported this in many audits. Okay. I was going to say, this sounds awfully – Yes. It's deja vu all over again. Yes. This was in many audits. Let's see here. I might have an answer to your question. Our last audit is 902. Yes. 902, which is a supervisor elections audit. We did this audit pursuant to section 102.118 of the municipal code, which requires us to audit each of the constitutional officers at least once every five years. So, this is why we conducted this audit to meet that requirement. Also, as part of our testing on the supervisor elections audit, we also performed a follow-up review on the previous audit that was done in February of 2021 to determine whether corrective action had been taken in response to our findings to that audit. And what we found – well, I'll say this is the first – for the follow-up review from report number 841, we found that all the issues were cleared for that. What we found in this audit, what we did was we – the focus of our audit was payments to polling locations for the use of polling location facilities for early voting and on election day during calendar year 2024. We found that while payments made to polling locations were overall accurate and timely, we found there was a lack of proper support for the payments due to a significant dollar amount of the payments not having an executed rental agreement or there not being an amount stated in the executed rental agreement. We found specific issues, we found a lack of written policies and procedures related to the selection and contracting and payments to polling locations. The supervisor elections did not have a rental agreement on file for – or the rent amount was not specified for 14 out of 376 non-city-owned polling locations. There were no agreements for city-owned polling locations. And even though there's no payments for that, it's important for scheduling and things like that. So of the 158,000 in payments to polling location, 43,598.51 was not supported by an agreement. And of that, 41,600 were sites for early voting. There were issues with 28 locations that were not paid accurately per their agreement. There were 27 locations, which there was 7,425 in overpayments due to payments not being processed. And then there was $125 in overpayment, and that was due to a location switch. And then that kind of is a highlight of the things that we found at the supervisor elections. So my question as a real estate guy is, how are you able to use a facility without a written agreement? So the supervisor elections, theoretically, is required by state statute to have a written agreement to utilize a facility that is not owned by, in this case, the city of Jacksonville. Is that a statutory requirement or a requirement of city ordinance? Do you want to make a note of this and reach out to the supervisor's office and ask them to answer these questions? And you can report back in the future, or you can report it to Colleen, and she can send it out to us. So it's basically, is it a state statute or local? If they didn't have one, are they required to have one? And if they are required to have one, then why didn't they have one? And what is the source of the requirement? Is it state statute or city ordinance? And 40, I mean, yeah, it's $43,598. In a $2.2 billion budget, it is statistically insignificant. But it's still $44,000. And so there was no agreement to back up that number. And if we had agreements, what if that number should have been $143,000? Find out and get back with you as to the requirement for an agreement. And then I see there were issues with 28 locations that were not paid accurately per their agreement. $7,425 in underpayments due to payments not being processed. And so I have a question. Why the delay? And then it says, in addition to the 27 locations not paid, we found five of the 284 payments were not paid timely. And then it says, a payment was processed from the incorrect budget account. And my comment is, do we not have a policies and procedures? And is it required by state statute or city ordinance? This one looks like it could have been. I'll follow up. Okay. Any questions? I'll have questions. Mr. Bass. Good evening. Through the chair to the council auditor. What is the date on this audit? Do you have it there? We looked at when it was released or the time period that we looked at? Time period it was conducted? Through 2024. When did the new supervisor take office? July 1st, 2023. 2023. Okay. What month was this in 2024? What do you know? We, the focus for our audit was payments for voting on an election day during calendar year 2024. Okay. Thank you. Plus, in this audit, you did a follow-up component to a previous audit, correct? That's correct. And all of the items were cleared from the previous audit. Well, as a taxpayer, I can only say that I'm relieved to know that every element in city government seems to be functioning improperly. These are all consistent, right? We're consistently incompetent. We're going to cover everything. All right. That concludes my report. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to move on to public comments. Public comments are to be directed at items on the agenda. Mr. Nooney, if you have comments to make about the information delivered by Mr. Parks or relative to these reports presented by Mr. Carter, you are welcome to comment. Otherwise, I will rule you out of order. Understood? All right. I am John J. Nooney, Jacksonville City Council Resolution 2023-0819. That is not on the agenda. Well, I'm introducing myself. I know that, but what relevance does that city ordinance have to do with who you are? Well, it has a lot to do with it. No, it doesn't. Yes, it does. You know, now I'm in City Council District 4. That's Caracos. CPAC 3. You know, School Board District 3, Cindy Pearson. Now, you know, ethics is gone in Duval County, Jacksonville. Mr. Nooney. What? That is not on the agenda. We are here to have comments on items that are on the agenda. Well, I'm setting it up. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, PSG, you know. I'd be happy to hear your comment. That's right. Public service grant process. Yeah. Please continue. PSG. That's Pottsburg Super Grant. No, it's not Pottsburg Super, whatever. Yes, it is. You know, you've got all, you know, all these different. Mr. Nooney. Okay. You know, I hope. Please sit down. OGC. Please sit down. Please sit down. You are welcome to talk about the items that are before this body. You're welcome to speak. PSG. You are welcome to speak to the true commission about items on our agenda. Well, I'm trying to. Fluent to our rules, we have adopted Chapter 286 of the Florida Statute. Whoa. You are welcome to speak to this body on any matter coming before the body. Look, you're taking up my time on this. I'm not taking up. I'm happy to give you three minutes if you have the ability to deliver a coherent message regarding the items on the agenda. Look, you know, you crushed me on the last one, you know, like with this public comment thing, you know, with Wendy Kahn. You know, that was a CIP. Hey, you know, our capital improvement projects. All right. Please have a seat. Thank you very much. But please. I don't mind you making presentations. Okay. But please. No, listen. Listen to me. Please. Speak to the matters before the body. I'm trying to. Present your opinions on the matters that are on our agenda. Public service grants. I specifically request Colleen to send you our agenda so you know what's on the agenda. You're the only person in the city of Jacksonville who gets their own personal copy of the agenda. May I interrupt a minute? May I interrupt? Yes. Do we still have a quorum? Yes. Not, I mean, not so, hopefully I won't make the chair upset. But what I'd like to do, this rule was recently made. And, look, as far as even Mr. Mooney, I don't know why I called him Mooney last few days. I've heard some of the same stuff a hundred times. However, I said it back in January that I think we should have public comment. I don't care what they talk about. And every entity that I go to, there's public comment. We had it at CPAC last night. I heard whatever it is Mr. Mooney talked about. And the time that we spend arguing with him telling him to sit down, instead of three minutes, we're at five minutes now. Now, I also believe that if we have 45 people out there, we can't give them three minutes. We may give them 36. We know how it is at city council. They give you, I believe, it's 90 minutes. If there's 90 people, you get a minute. If there's 45 people, you get two minutes, right? You might get, I've got 30 seconds before. I've got three minutes before. And I'm not sure if this is the proper time to do it. But with that said, I'd like to make a motion that we change it and go back to giving public comment. Now, we can set a time. Let's call it two minutes. For whatever reason they want to talk and get it over with, because they are the public and they are coming. And quite frankly, get it over with. So, my motion is that we resume back public comment to whatever they want to speak about. And if we'd like to set a time for that, we can do that two minutes. Instead of three minutes, let's call it two minutes. I'm happy to trust your comment. So, I would, hold on. So, I'm making a motion that we allow the public comment to go back and set it for two minutes. That will require an amendment to the bylaws. Bylaws, in order to amend the bylaws, we have to have 30 days to review the amendment. You are happy to, I'm more than happy to accept your amendment to the bylaws. But we have to follow the bylaws. If you want to submit such an amendment, submit it, and then we will consider it under the rules of the procedure. Do I need to, do I just submit an amendment to you, Colleen? I'll do that. I'll send you one to amend the bylaws. The motion and the second are on the record. So, at the following meeting, you can take a vote. Okay. But we will need a written text of what you're hoping to put in the bylaws. Is that correct, Colleen? I would have to. Well, it'll be in the minutes, right? It'll be in the minutes. It'll be accurately depicted in the minutes. So, when they get the minutes next, in a month, it'll be in the, the verbiage will be in those minutes. So, to restate your motion, your desire is that we amend our bylaws to allow public comments on any subject whatsoever up to two minutes. Yes. Is that adequate? That's adequate. Now, also, now, yes, that is the, that is the thing. Now, again, if we all of a sudden show up in two months and there's 50 people out there, then, you know, we'll have a right to lower it down in 15 seconds. Just add flexibility to the end of your statement. Flexibility. Again, do you have anything on public service grants at all? Yes. I heard Kids Hope Alliance. And, first of all, I want to thank Chairman Barr. Thank you. And, last night, you know, at the CPAC meeting, you know. Mr. Nooney, hold on. Let me stop you there. I made the motion that we're second and we're going to change it. But, right now, it's not changed, so don't talk about CPAC last night. Okay. Stick to what the chairman, what it is, and that is, if it's not strictly what the bylaws say now, then I, too, would ask you to have a seat. And, let's wait until next month and see if it passes. That way, everything's legit. All right. Well, public service grants, I mean, does Kids Hope Alliance fall under public service grants? No. Okay. Now, they have a, they contract directly with Kids Hope Alliance. I'm sorry. Kids Hope Alliance contracts directly with various service providers. I will allow you the latitude to express your opinion on that process. Would you like to speak to the process of the Kids Hope Alliance contracting with providers of services? Yes or no? Yes. Okay. You have three minutes. All right. Well, Roger Belcher, well, Kids Hope Alliance, you know, there's, well, the boys and, there's a whole, I guess, list of beneficiaries that use Kids Hope Alliance. And so, you know, I guess the question you're wanting me to address is how the funds are directed or disbursed. What you, relevant to Kids Hope Alliance, contracting service is germane to the topic of discussion. You are welcome to present for three minutes your comments on that topic. Yeah, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and of course, with me, it's how I'm tying it in to, like, Pottsburg Creek or waterway issues in that they would be, well, I would beg to differ. Okay. Well, well, well, well, well. How does it relate? Well, well, how, how about, like, you take a river keeper thing, you know, if they, you know, do they, well, but, but do they use money to do programming or anything with, through that? I don't, okay, well, you know, I'm not, you know, going or doing an audit, per se, like, in depth on that one, but, all right, one more, okay. Well, I should, well, I definitely don't want, all right, well, Kids Hope, you know, I've been going to their meetings. Your thoughts on the Kids Hope Alliance. I'd be glad to hear your comments. Oh, all right, well, again, the reason I go to them is to show the benefit of waterway access of how it not only helps youth, but seniors. You know, you know, this FWC I have, it's a playoff, the Fish, I know, Wildlife Commission, but, okay, I know, get that gavel ready. I know I just diverted on that one, but, but with the Kids Hope Alliance, you know, that's really why I just go, because they would directly benefit, you know, from access on our waterways, not only just, but everybody would. And so when you talk about grants and compliance, I feel like I can just tie that in to every age group, Council on Elder Affairs, Mayor's Disability Council, you know, there's, I mean, you go right down the list. It's J-E-A-J-T-A. How many more? 30. 30. Well, you know what, I almost want to just give you almost like a new shirt update, you know, but got some, and actually I think we'll be coming out with some hats, too, but. We're not interested in hearing about it. All right, well, but, but, but listen. We're not talking, we're not here to discuss the addition of new items to your line of sartorial splendor. Thank you very much for your comments. Well, thank you for listening. Thank you. Previous business. We didn't have a committee report, per se. I have no comments to make. Under new business discussion regarding all matters, would you like to take up the issue of amending the bylaws at this point, additional amplification? And I'm happy to have us discuss it. Do I just need to make a motion again? With motions, you already, we have a motion, we have a second. Well, I'm not sure if there's anything else we need to talk about until next month. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about under new business? No, sir, I'm good. Mr. McHugh? May I say something? So, Mr. Carter and I were just reading through the bylaws, and Article 10 states that if you want to amend the bylaws, you need to present in writing at this meeting, and then it be voted on at the next meeting. So, we're just going to write it down. That's fine. On this piece of paper, and have Mr. Barr sign it before this meeting is over. But just for clarity to Commissioner Barr, is your intent to just have public comment for a period of time with no restrictions on what they are allowed to speak about? That is correct. Just like the other entities allow. Yes. Thank you. My understanding was that he wanted to add a period of public comment for up to two minutes per speaker to address the true commission on any matter of concern. Is that a fair statement? Two minutes is plenty. Up to two minutes per person. Per person, yes. If we have 10 people, we would have to shrink it down. Why don't you add something like flexibility, depending on the amount of people up to the chair. Again, if 50 people show up, we can't do two minutes. But as it is now, in the four years I've been, there's only been one public commenter, and that's Mr. Noody. We've actually had three. Well, three in four and a half years. Anyway. Commissioner to comments. Ms. Oglesby. I understand that. I guess what I want to find out. What is the bottom line when we review the grants and you compare it to or route it to whichever councilman, councilperson it is? What is the bottom line that you want to get to? Once you find out which councilperson it is, is their nonprofit organization, what are you going to do with that information? What do you want to do with that information? To me personally? Anybody? Well, here, I'll answer on my behalf. It was Mr. Lewers recommended the committee to do that. And quite frankly, I just want to make sure that none of us are targeting any particular person for something. That's really the deal with me. I mean, we can look at it, and I agree, let's look at it, see what it is. But what I fear in light of today's temperature here in Jacksonville, that I don't want to see this commission targeting Mr. Tyson here, right? If we want to look at all of our stuff, then I'm good with that, and that's what I want to see. But to answer your question, I'm not sure exactly what the formation of the committee was. I don't know what the ultimate outcome of it. I don't know. And I thought that we were going to meet as a committee. I didn't know that one committee person was going to go off and request this. I thought that we were going to meet as a committee and do that, which I thought is what we're supposed to do. So, you know, I was kind of surprised today. That's where I stand on that. No, because I heard Commissioner Day indicated that, for the most part, everyone gets their organization approved. So, at the end of the day, what do you want this committee to do if that is the case? And we find that they all have their organization approved for grants. What do you expect from us from that point? Is there anything other than just to know what you already suspect? Do we really know what the bottom line purpose of the committee was for other than just curiosity? His initial inquiry was about the sampling methodology. Then I think I have to go back and look at the recording. I looked at the recording of the last meeting to make sure I understood what it was he was seeking. And that's why the special committee was created. And I don't think he had any particular motivation. We'd have to ask him that directly, but he's not here. Maybe he did have a motivation. I don't know. My recollection is that he wanted to see if there was a correlation between the entities that they found issues with in the audit and affiliations with those entities to council members. Okay. I mean, I guess the crux, and we have two minutes, and I'll shut up. Any additional comments from commissioners? I'd love to hear more about Jacksport. Just future reference. Yeah. So, if you've got any audits on that, let me know. That's it. So, I think. Yes, sir. In relation to what she was asking, I think one of the issues might be, or one of the thought processes might be, are any of these people involved, councilmen involved, are they having any dollar amount? In other words, are they in a position in the organization where there's a salary involved, or there's some kind of stipend involved in traffic? I mean, would they go on for, I think that's probably what everybody wants to know is, hey, are they getting, is they all getting this stuff done so they get some money out of it? Yes. And I think that's the issue. I don't think there's any evidence that the grant money that's going to the organizations is used by the organization to pay the council member. I've never seen any evidence of that. But I think that's the underlying concern that the public has. And, you know, the only way to solve it would be to say, if you're a member of the Jacksonville City Council and you are employed by a nonprofit, your nonprofit shall not be eligible to receive city funding during your tenure on the city council. That would eliminate it completely. Is it harsh? Is it capricious? Could be. You could make many arguments. And it may hurt the particular nonprofit at that period of time. I mean, there are many things to consider. It's really damaging to a nonprofit. All right. Without having any further comments, me.