APD still owed $400K in past due bills

AUSTIN (KXAN) – The Austin Police Department has collected more than $350,000 after a KXAN investigation highlighted accounting problems within the Special Events Department.

In February, KXAN uncovered more than $800,000 in unpaid bills owed to APD dating back to 2000 for security and traffic control provided by APD officers for some of the city’s most high profile events.

“I think a big problem was a lack of proper notes- proper record keeping by us,” said APD Commander William Manno, who oversees Special Events.

Manno has been correcting accounting errors that occured before he took over the unit in 2010.

“A lot of events prior to 09- that paperwork just doesn’t exist- we can’t find it,” Manno said.

But the department has sorted out some of the old debts. Run Tex owed the city $102,117 which was paid by CEO Paul Carrozza, who was not aware he owed any money to APD. Freescale took care of a debt for $80,518.31 for security provided for 5K runs in 2004 and 2006. Junior Achievement settled a $26,072.00 debt.

“It wasn’t so much a case of them wanting to get out of paying what was owed- its just- they weren’t aware and a lot of times there’s many people involved in these events and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” said Manno.

Accounting practices are much different at APD now, but there is still more than $400,000 owed to the department that is more than 90 days past due. First on that list is a company called JAG Traffic which owes $79,007.50.

“That is a highway construction project that I believe that company has gone bankrupt- pretty much left town- they owe quite a bit,” said Manno. “I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to see that since their company’s financial status is very much in question.”

State law will not allow APD to wipe the debts off their books because the money they are owed belongs to the taxpayers.

“We have a budget that is called reimbursed overtime and when we have an event and we bill

You can read the rest of this article at: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/apd-still-owed-400k-in-past-due-bills

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Posted by rbutler on Aug 13 2012. Filed under Williamson County Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry