A Richmond city councillor wants to expand a forensic audit of city gift card purchases to cover the past decade.
Coun. Kash Heed brought forth a motion at Tuesday's general purposes committee meeting to dive deeper into an audit of "unresolved discrepancy" concerning gift card purchases and uses by extending the audit date back to 2015.
revealed the City of Richmond had bought almost $450,000 worth of gift cards over three years.
A of the City of Richmond's gift card purchase records found $295,000 of gift card purchases remain "unreconciled."
The city found "inconsistencies" during a comprehensive review of its long-standing employee recognition program, specifically relating to the use of gift cards.
Heed described the situation as a "real concern" and is "trying to get to the bottom of this."
"There's been several things over the eight months that have got the ball rolling on the lack of accountability on the gift cards," he said.
"I think there may be a larger problem that we have to delve into. It's on the transparency and accountability overall of taxpayer dollars here in Richmond, whether it's related to this gift card scandal or something of a greater magnitude."
Heed told the Richmond 蜜桃视频app the forensic audit has been going on for "the last few weeks," to his understanding.
"But that's just related to the discrepancies identified in the news story going back over the three years," he explained.
"With in excess of $250,000 unreconciled over the last three years, do we have a larger problem?"
Heed's motion cites that the unresolved discrepancy in regards to the gift cards "could be a result of poor management or potential fraudulent actions."
"Moreover, this issue highlights a deficiency in oversight and responsibility in handling these matters," reads the motion.
"To gain a comprehensive understanding of the repercussions of this situation, the ongoing forensic audit should include an analysis dating back to 2015."
Unanimous support was shown for the motion at Tuesday's committee meeting.
"I hope we don't find anything, but if we do, at least we can say we did our due diligence," said Coun. Carol Day.
"Because at a council level, we're simply not aware of where every dollar is spent, and we rely on our KPMG and other organizations to do an audit."
Coun. Bill McNulty said taxpayers "deserve a whole picture" of the situation, and that it's "extremely important that they get our version."
"We need to report back to them whatever findings there are," he said.
Councillors have asked staff for an approximate timeline of when they can expect a forensic audit to be completed, and if not the whole report, at least a first forensic report.
The motion was carried without opposition and will be brought forth to city council in a meeting next Monday.
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