A startling audit released earlier this month found it “impossible” to pinpoint the amount of money the city spends on contracting with minority and female businesses — and that numbers previously presented to Atlanta City Council members were significantly inflated.
Rocsean Spencer, the city’s new director in the Office of Contract Compliance, promised elected officials that the problem would be corrected.
“I do recognize that this report was devastating for you all to actually have to go through,” she said during the council’s finance committee last week, adding that the city’s outdated management software used to record contracts is a big part of the problem.
“We all know data is only as good as the information we put in it,” she said, “So the system cannot operate unless we put accurate data in.”
That audit of the city’s minority contract work reviewed subcontractor data from July 2021 to March 2024 and found it was so incomplete that auditors couldn’t determine if the city was meeting its diversity requirements.
Numbers reported to officials on minority-participation were far from accurate.
The report said the city spent nearly $230 million on minority business contracts, while the audit found the total closer to $133 million. Similarly, the report said $88 million was spent on female-owned businesses, while the actual amount was closer to $38 million.
The news coincided with the 50th anniversary of Atlanta electing its first Black mayor, Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr., who is credited for increasing the percentage of city contracts going to minority firms.
Council member Howard Shook, chair of the finance committee, impressed on Spencer the importance of Atlanta’s minority business participation numbers.
“If you haven’t already figured it out, when you took this job, you became the guardian of Atlanta’s foremost policy brand,” he said. “Yes, and we’ve all seen our share of alarming audits — this one was up there.”
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Credit: NATRICE MILLER
Credit: NATRICE MILLER
A program using cameras to ticket speeders in 10 city of Atlanta school zones has raked in millions of dollars since the program was implemented in September of last year.
But council members are raising concern that tickets were being handed out to non-speeding drivers and even outside of school zones. Council member Antonio Lewis said that constituents in his district have been ticketed on the way to get their vehicle tags renewed.
“It’s a horrible thing when folks can’t afford these $100 tickets that they’re getting, and it’s somebody’s fault and it’s not theirs, and now they can’t get their tag renewed,” he said.
“I want to make sure that we’re not making some money off the back of people in our city,” Lewis said.
Chief Judge Christopher Ward said on Tuesday during council’s public safety committee that the city is actively working to issue refunds and dismiss court cases for wrongly-ticked drivers.
“They have sent me a list of cases today where we would need to dismiss the cases because of that very issue,” he said, adding that he was also the victim of a faulty speed zone camera ticket.
Atlanta City Solicitor Raines F. Carter confirmed that the court system is retroactively trying to correct the problem and set up a refunding process for residents.
“We need to go all the way back, because I have received inquiries from elected officials — not only in the city of Atlanta, but in the state — believe it or not, court employees, two police officers,” he said. “So something definitely needs to be done. Because that should not have happened.”
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Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
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