Sammy Baugh may no longer be the only reason anybody in the nation’s capital might have heard of Rotan, a tiny West Texas town where the former Washington Redskins quarterback lived after retiring from pro football.
Thanks to an new audit report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General, Rotan Housing Authority officials could make the little burg the talk of Washington, or at least its federal bureaucracy.
The HUD IG’s report documented in detail that Rotan officials failed at every turn in their management of 86 federally-funded housing units. The failures included:
• Failing to maintain documentation to support its financial operations.
• Not maintaining proper documentation for expenses.
• Improperly procuring for an asbestos removal contract and not documenting that it was paid for properly.
• Failing to manage or administer its tenant rents effectively.
• Violating state law by not maintaining written minutes or recordings of its meetings.
• Failing to provide adequate oversight of daily operations.
• The authority’s governing board failed to properly oversee the executive director.
• Could not show that the general ledger accurately reflected all transactions.
• Maintained correct and supportable account balances on $382,217 of federal housing funds.
• Failed to take action against delinquent tenants, which allowed them to accrue large outstanding balances.
• Could not show that it properly charged, collected, or deposited all rents.
• Incurred $46,097 in questioned costs.
• Could not support a $43,300 asbestos contract or payment.
“These conditions occurred because the executive director ignored or failed to follow federal regulations and the authority’s consolidated annual contributions contract,” said the HUD IG report, which was released Oct. 31, 2014.
The report also noted that the Rotan authority has a history of serious mismanagement stretching back to 2001.
“Since the authority continued to demonstrate poor performance, continued mismanagement, and a failure to properly administer its HUD programs and funds, the authority signed a recovery agreement with HUD on July 26, 2012,” the report said.
The HUD IG recommended that HUD’s general counsel staff consider the evidence presented in the report and decide whether to “pursue remedies under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act and/or civil money penalties against the executive director.” The executive director was not named in the report.
Go here for the full report.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
