The Broward County Commission should keep tighter reins on the new Homeless Assistance Center although a recent audit shows no huge irregularities with the center's finances, the commission's auditor said Friday.
Auditor Normat Thabit's recommendations come after his department found that the Broward Partnership for the Homeless (BPHI), the group in charge of the center, does have the money - about $1.4 million - in its bank accounts to make payments on a $2.3 million construction loan from the county.
The partnership, which opened the center on February 1, has never denied having the funds.
Instead, the partnership had asked the county for more time to pay back the loan because it feared that making payments as pledge donations came in would create a cash flow problem.
Partnership officials said they needed the money as a cushion in case they did not have enough to pay for furniture, fixtures and equipment for the center at 920 NW Seventh Ave. in Fort Lauderdale.
"We knew there were no improprieties here and they confirmed it," Ezra Krieg, the partnership's resource development director, said. "I think it's a good news story. It says, 'Hey, these guys have not violated the public trust.'"
Still, Thabit wants to make sure the county gets paid. While he has not given the center a new date for when it should begin making payments, he is suggesting the county and partnership renegotiate the contract to give the partnership more time to pay the loan.
He is also asking the county's contract administrator, Angelo Castillo, director of the Human Services Department, to sign off on al of the center's expenses.
"I don't have confidence in their ability to do what they say they are going to do because they didn't live up to what they said they were going to do in the agreement," Thabit said Friday.
"By putting tighter controls over their expenditures, and tighter reins, we will know in a month or two what they can or can't pay."
The commission last month ordered Thabit to review the partnership's bank statements, receipts and invoices in order to determine why the group had failed to make good on the loan.
Under the loan agreement between the partnership and the county, the group was to make payments as donations from $4 million in pledges came in.
"Our feeling is there appears to be sufficient resources," Thabit said.
Thabit also recommended:
At least one of the recommendations is already in the works, Krieg said. The partnership is in the process of hiring a grants writer and forming a development committee to raise both operations and capital funds, he said.