By Luc Brown
The City of Jackson received the reports from the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury’s office regarding the solid waste contract and the baseball club contract, according to a news release from the City of Jackson Mayor’s Office. These reports wrap up the investigation that was initially requested in August 2019 by Mayor Scott Conger.
“Shortly after I took office, we began our process of systemically changing the way we do business in Jackson,” said Conger.
“Part of that was analyzing all of our contracts and agreements. We noticed some abnormalities in several areas and decided to request guidance from the Comptroller’s office. They have been working with my administration, as well as current and former members of the city council. I want to thank the Comptroller’s office for their time and diligence in this process. As you can see, there is much to do, and on much we have already started. We have already rebid the solid waste contract, and the process with the Baseball Club is ongoing. We will refer all issues to our internal auditor to develop a plan to make sure we have processes in place to address the findings. We are also looking forward to pairing this with the report from The Crone Law Firm at our March meeting to discuss.
The baseball club findings include
1.) “questionable” payments of at least $525,542.59 for Goods and Services the Club received from vendors through trade transactions”
2.) Lack of discussion of a material change in the lease
3.) Question of the authority of the Former Mayor to sign a letter assuming $500,000 of club expenses by the city without appropriate and adequate disclosure.
4.) Lack of Transparency and questionable oversight over transactions between the city and the club
The Solid Waste findings include
1.) Investigators noted operational discrepancies, material omissions, ambiguities, and other issues in the 2016 contract for Solid Waste Collections.
2.) Investigators noted multiple issues and weaknesses during preparation of bid documents, evaluation of bidders, voting process, and finalization of the contract.
It should be noted that on February 1, 2021 the results of the investigation were presented to the Madison County Grand Jury who elected not to take any action.