NO EVIDENCE OF ATTEMPTED ‘PROFITEERING’
According to an audit, recent accusations from a county commissioner toward the health department have no basis in fact.
Recent allegations from Dagmar Wood, first district county commissioner, that the Platte County Health Department tried to profit in an inappropriate way from federal aid money in control of the county commission are unfounded, the county auditor says.
That’s according to a follow-up audit performed by Kevin Robinson, Platte County’s auditor, on the 2020 health department CARES Act funding request submitted to the county commission. Robinson conducted the follow-up audit to determine if the health department’s requested reimbursement funding for existing staff payroll-related expenses were an attempt at profiteering from the county’s CARES Act grant program.
Dagmar Wood, first district commissioner, made the accusations against the health department in a recent county commission session. Wood insinuated that the health department in essence tried to “double dip” off the backs of taxpayers in requesting reimbursement for certain payroll expenses.
Her words prompted the auditor to review the documents and guidelines from the 2020 CARES grant program, which was carried out by a previous county commission that included Wood.
“Nothing supports the claim of profiteering,” Robinson said this week.
In an interesting sidenote, Robinson said the county commission removed his audit report from the commission’s consent agenda for this week’s meeting. That could be interpreted as an attempt to hide his audit report on the health department situation from public view.
“This audit report is the first in 12 years of over 150 publications the commission has pulled from their meeting agenda,” Robinson said.
Reached for comment on the item being pulled from the agenda, Scott Fricker, presiding county commissioner said: “It was a last minute addition to the agenda and I just wanted to talk to Kevin about it so I could understand it in advance. It will be on the next administrative session agenda if he so chooses.”
Going forward, Robinson said his audit reports will be published on the auditor’s page on the county’s website at co.platte.mo.us and publication notice will be sent.
THE GRANT APPLICATION
FROM HEALTH DEPT.
“Based on a statement in commission session of attempts of profiteering, an audit examining the health department’s request was appropriate to reconfirm all requests were within the guidelines of the federal CARES Act, the state’s COVID Relief Fund program and the county’s public sector grant program,” Robinson said.
If allegations of profiteering were found to be accurate, the health department would have to refund the CARES Act grant funding, Robinson said.
The documents the health department provided to support the grant requests are public record.
“Review of the original grant request confirmed the commission’s denial of two of the labor reimbursement requests totaling over $518,000,” Robinson said.
Contrary to Wood’s accusation, those labor reimbursement requests “were allowable requests under the grant program allowable expenditures guidance of substantially changed job duties in response to COVID-19 or mitigation of the pandemic,” Robinson says in his review.
In other words, the $518,000 in labor reimbursement was an allowable request from the health department, but the county commission chose to deny those allowable expenses.
The auditor said the labor reimbursement request denials occurred prior to the commission’s formal approval of the health department’s grant application in late December 2020.
Supporting documents were received by the auditor’s office in early 2021. Of the approved grant estimates for reimbursement, “the health department received the first payment on March 3, 2021 for $227,969.01, $80,197.46 less than the $308,166.47 grant award,” said Robinson. Not all items qualified for reimbursement under the grant program’s guidelines.
Reimbursed requests in early 2021 were reviewed by the auditor’s office and confirmed to be compliant and nothing supports the claim of profiteering, according to the audit report.
The county commission approved $308,166 of the health department’s requested $741,743. The county commission denied two requests for wages and benefit reimbursement payments: $132,041 and $301,534, which reduced the labor related portion of the grant application from $518,553 to $84,977.
The $132,041 was requested for existing staff members whose duties changed to assist with COVID-19, and the $301,534 was requested for other existing staff members assisting with COVID-19 response in various ways.
“Both of these amounts were denied in the grant award by the county commission, although job duties substantially changed due to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were qualified expenses for CARES act reimbursement,” the auditor says in his report.
This would lend credence to critics who have said the county commission’s decision to approve less than the health department’s request was a political decision and not one based on the merits of the application.
“Although the county’s program did not specifically overwrite federal guidance of substantially different duties as eligible expenditures, the decision (by the county commission) not to consider the requests was made solely at the discretion of the commission,” Robinson’s audit report says.
“Federal and state intended use of the CARES Act was to provide fast and direct economic assistance. The guidance recommended first and foremost that funding should be used to assist with healthcare costs such as testing, tracing and personal protective equipment. The guidance also included assistance to local businesses that did not receive help from other CARES Act program resources,” Robinson says in his audit report.