AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Augusta Commission members got an update Tuesday on the audit of the Parks and Recreation Department.

They didn’t get the full audit report, but it was an executive summary that’s still in draft mode. Still, that tells us a lot about the audit, including that there were no criminal findings.

Housing and Community Development Audit

Augusta officials say a preliminary response related to an audit of the Housing and Community Development Department was received from Cherry Bekaert.

After initial review, the city has requested additional information to “ensure clarity and accuracy before the process moves forward.”

“The Augusta government remains committed to transparency and will provide further updates once the requested information is received and the audit is finalized,” the city said in the news release.

In November, Augusta Commission members held a budget workshop session with much discussion about the Housing and Community Development Department.

That’s the department that left the city on the hook to pay back millions in federal grant money. The city received more than $6 million in grant money during the COVID-19 pandemic, supposedly to help people who were in danger of eviction. The city never spent the money for that purpose, so the government demanded it back.

The scandal led to the exit of Housing and Community Director Hawthorne Welcher and sparked an audit of the department.

Audit findings

The findings reveal no criminal activity, but uncovered systemic issues rooted in outdated policies and weak internal controls.

UHY confirmed there were no criminal findings in the audit. However, officials say the problems uncovered are serious and years in the making.

Outdated policies

Many of the department’s rules haven’t been updated in more than a decade, and that’s what led to inconsistent bookkeeping, confusing ledger codes, and gaps in how spending was tracked.

The problems identified include:

• Outdated policies
• Inconsistent bookkeeping
• Gaps in oversight
• Weak internal controls
• Need for better integration with finance and IT systems

Scope of the audit

UHY’s team reviewed more than 20,000 transactions and examined:

• Lake Olmstead: Details on expenditures and ledger codes
• Community Centers: List of user groups and dollar amounts taken in with each group
• River Walk: Expenditures from all areas, including the additional $150,000 for 8th Street bulkhead
• Vendor Expenditures: All vendor payments and the jobs they performed, including consultants and lawn services
• Park Expenditures: All park spending broken down by park with ledger codes, including Fleming Park
• Employee Travel: All hotel stays with locations by all employees in the department
• Candlelight Jazz: Money totals for each date and how the money was collected and used
• IT Review: Any deleted files for the department that are personnel or financial
• Contracts: All contracts of $25,000 or less to verify the department head’s signature on documents, plus recommendations on automating vs. paper processes

What was uncovered?

• At Lake Olmstead, $91,000 in charges were spread across seven different ledger codes — including a $5,000 speaker fee logged as “advertising.”
• Community centers had no master list of who used the buildings. UHY had to piece it together themselves — identifying 43 user groups and more than $6.6 million in revenue over three years.
• On the Riverwalk, $1.4 million was spent — but the city doesn’t have a specific ledger code for bulkhead repairs, making it impossible to track some of that work separately.
• Among 36,000 vendor payments, they found missing invoices, wrong dates, and inconsistent documentation — but again, no fraud.
• When they looked at park-specific spending, 21 parks had no ledger code at all, and 30 codes existed with no park attached to them.
• For travel, some staff stayed in standard hotels — others, including the former director, stayed at more expensive ones. They also found travel costs buried in unrelated expense categories.
• For Candlelight Jazz, the deposits didn’t match the revenue the city reported — three years in a row.
• And IT confirmed that the former director’s email account was deleted, meaning auditors couldn’t review any of that communication.

Next steps

UHY says the next step is writing a formal response, and commissioners say they want that response before they dig into the audit line-by-line.

Parks and Recreation Director Tameka Williams emphasized the department’s commitment to moving forward.

“As a department, we know how to move forward. We understand the gaps that we need to fill and information for policy and procedures that we need to get in place.”

Williams noted that the department has already begun reviewing and updating its policies, particularly around monitoring and financial controls.

“We’ve looked at our policies with a fine-tooth comb, seeing what we need to update as far as monitoring and controls of our finances, how transactions come in, making sure that we are maintaining accountability,” she said.

Williams also highlighted plans for staff training improvements and the department’s focus on following proper procedures.

“We’re doing better. We’re trying to improve, and this is how we improve. We hear what has happened and then we change so we can move forward,” Williams said.

According to UHY’s assessment, updating policies represents “the best oversight you can provide,” with the consultant team concluding that many of the department’s foundational issues stemmed from procedures that hadn’t been modernized in over a decade.

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