Story by Amaya Graham
COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) – Back on July 25th Columbus City Council initiated an internal audit to be conducted on the finance department. Five months later, the findings are in.
Internal Auditor Donna McGinnis says there have been checks from business owners trying to renew their business licenses that never made it to the bank with one check dating back to 2006.
“So the bulk of them are stale checks. You also have waiting credit card authorizations. In some cases, your are not just talking about licensure. You’re talking about pawn shop ownership you talking about a wide variety of things,” Donna McGinnis.
Many city councilors had several questions for McGinnis. Glenn Davis says he was blown away by the findings in the audit report.
“Gross negligence comes to my mind, and I think it’s going to be hard before all this is over that you’re not going to be able to point the finger at someone or somebody,” Glenn Davis said
Director of Finance Angelica Alexander disagrees with McGinnis when it comes to the uncollected 45.1 million dollars. Alexander says that it is impossible to believe that 45.1 million dollars is an accurate amount, she says 2.5 million would be more accurate.
“It is inaccurately stated that there is $45.1 million upon process transactions catalog that CCG lock box that’s inaccurately stated. That the lockbox activity has not been deposited into the city’s bank. All transactions have been cataloged in blocks in Excel spreadsheets. What we refer to as lock box is cash. These accounts are cash that has been deposited in the city bank account so there is no missing money,” Angelica Alexander said.
