City Council still must OK plan to split duties between state, local inspector general
The Governmental Affairs Committee of the New Orleans City Council approved a plan Monday that will split responsibility between local and state officials for sniffing out potential instances of fraud in the roughly $2 billion, citywide school construction program already under way.
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View full sizeA crew prepares to pour a concrete retaining wall as work progresses at the future home of Edward Hynes Elementary School in Lakeview, in August. Under a new plan, the city's inspector general and the state legislative auditor will both monitor new school construction.The plan has gone through numerous twists and turns and will still need a vote from the full council, but now appears likely to move ahead.
As originally envisioned, the New Orleans inspector general will hire new staff members to help oversee contractors involved in the work. But the Louisiana legislative auditor will also pitch in, along with the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
The state's Recovery School District, which is helping to oversee the construction program, stressed Monday that the new arrangement will save it more than $770,000 over the original plan brought to the City Council for approval in June, which involved only the Inspector General. The RSD is under heavy pressure to stretch a $1.8 billion FEMA settlement to cover needed renovations and construction. The district plans to unveil new revisions next week after facing criticism over unfunded projects in a previous iteration of the plan.
RSD Superintendent John White said, "This partnership allows us to add an additional layer of monitoring while making sure every dollar intended to build schools for kids goes toward construction."
White, who took over at the Recovery School District in May, faced questioning at the legislative session this spring about why the district had already decided to contract with the New Orleans inspector general rather than going through the legislative auditor.
On Monday, White said the district went back and found areas where auditor would have been required by law to do oversight work on the construction program anyway. So it was able to reduce some of the proposed workload -- and expense -- for the inspector general's office.
Meanwhile, in talks with the governor's office, officials determined that the state Homeland Security Office could pick up some of the oversight tab and get reimbursed by FEMA, independent of the money that the agency is putting into work on schools.
The upshot is that instead of spending $2 million to pay for construction oversight, the RSD will pay about $1.2 million. And none of the FEMA funding earmarked for construction will have to be diverted for that purpose. Only the portion of the $1.8 billion settlement set aside specifically for administrative costs will be used to pay the Inspector General, RSD officials said. The original plan would likely have eaten somewhat into core construction funding.
In a statement, Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said, "This innovative collaboration allows for a high level of fraud prevention."
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Andrew Vanacore can be reached at avanacore@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3304.
