Broward’s Inspector General has found that Hallandale Beach officials “grossly mismanaged” millions of dollars in public funds “entrusted to the care of its Community Redevelopment Agency,” according to a report obtained by BrowardBulldog.org.
“The [Office of Inspector General] investigation substantiated the allegations and uncovered numerous deficiencies in the city’s administration of the CRA,” says the 50-page preliminary report.
The report has not been released publicly.
Investigators said they found at least $2.2 million in questionable CRA expenditures between 2007 and 2012, including inappropriate loans to local businesses and grants to local nonprofits — as well as the improper use of bond proceeds.
The city improperly spent $416,000 of CRA money for parks outside the CRA boundaries, the report says.
The spending, which was not always documented, was often done at what amounted to the whim of former city managers Mike Good and Mark Antonio, the report says.
Former Commissioner Keith London told investigators that his colleagues “looked at the CRA fund as one big pile of money and they didn’t care how or where the money went,” the report says.
Mayor Joy Cooper, however, offered a different take. “She was not concerned with the CRA administration’s lack of [expenditure] verification because the CRA Board members observed the work of the nonprofits when they went out in the community,” the report says.
Cooper and the rest of the city commission also sit as the CRA’s board of directors.
“This report vindicates everything I have stated for the last six years,” London said Tuesday night.
Cooper could not be reached for comment.
The probe began 14 months ago following a string of stories in BrowardBulldog.org about questionable city loans to local businesses and land purchase through the CRA. It surfaced publicly last April when county agents sought a multitude of records at City Hall.
In some cases, the report says, the CRA awarded funds despite a 2010 Florida Attorney General opinion that CRA expenditures must be connected to “brick and mortar” capital improvements — not, for example, to promote economic development or promote socially beneficial programs by nonprofits.
In one case, the line of what’s legal was apparently crossed and a crime may have been committed, the report says.
The Inspector General’s findings about Hallandale Beach are the latest to cite serious mismanagement of CRA funds. A year ago, for example, the Inspector General slammed Lauderdale Lakes for misspending $2.5 million in CRA funds. More recently, the Florida Auditor General identified misspending by Hollywood’s CRA.
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that the gross mismanagement of CRA funds by a Broward County municipality is not a unique occurrence,” the report reads.
The CRA was established in 1996 under a state law that allows it to collect tax revenue to be used to rid slum and blight conditions. It receives 95 percent of the taxes collected on the appreciated value of properties within its boundaries. The county has provided Hallandale’s CRA with approximately $35 million since it began.
Inspector General John Scott’s report includes what amounts to a warning to other Broward cities that his office will be eyeballing their CRAs to see how they spend their property tax dollars.
Read more at the Miami Herald website.