As the former Telecommunications Manager for the City of San Antonio, Tx. I recently filed the following complaint with over 60 federal and state agencies.
I wish to report grant fraud committed by employees of the City of San Antonio, Tx against programs administered by agencies of the Federal government and the State of Texas.
As directed I am contacting the appropriate agencies that are exposed to the fraud (see CD document - contact list)
State and Federal grant dollars are being spent for other than their intended use.inflated labor costs/hours are being included on invoices for payment. Charges for costs which are not attributable to the grants drain funding from legitimate uses.
As Telecommunications Manager for the City of San Antonio, Texas I reported padded invoices, illegal purchases and the existence of a slush fund (variable) to internal auditors and the Office of Municipal Integrity. These violations directly impacted State and Federal grant funding. Rather than addressing the issue, correcting the pervasive fraud and voluntarily reimbursing funding to the appropriate agencies City employees conspired to halt audits/investigations, issue fraudulent reports, illegally deny open records requests for information and cover up the illegal activity.
Fraud against State and Federal grants existed many. Many years before I was employed as Telecommunications Manager and continued after I was terminated for reporting wrong-doing. I have submitted documentation for fiscal year 5 as an example but be aware that the fraud existed for decades (possibly 25 years) and not just a single year.
In the attached email from Municipal Integrity Manager Quinn to Budget Director Zanoni, CIO Armstrong and IT Director Miller the fraud and associated cover-up is revealed when she states:
The case file is closed with the notation lack of evidence/unfounded.
The telephone variable has been used to pay for items completely unrelated to City telephones.
The largely unsupervised and unregulated billing of departments across the City under the guise of the telephone variable for the past 25 years has resulted in departments having been billed for an untold amount of goods and services from which their department received no benefit or for costs that rightfully should have been borne by ITSD.
And Contract Services recent audit of ITSD showed significant billing problems.
Several City departments including Health and Community Initiatives rely heavily on grant funding. Telecommunications equipment, maintenance, etc. Is included in this support. While costs associated with legitimate purchases and monthly fees are permitted the monthly surcharge applied to every City telephone illegally drains funding from State and Federal grants due in part to the clandestine inclusion of costs of goods and services from which their department received no benefit. Municipal Integrity ascertained that City Departments received no benefit hence one must agree that the grant funded programs within each Department received no benefit. Grant funded programs were billed for an untold amount of goods and services from which their department received no benefit. This is illegal.
I am including a CD containing relevant information to my charge of grant fraud including:
1. Annual Budget - Information on grant funding for City of San Antonio by Department
2. Assistance to Recipients Details of funding by program/agency
3. Budget Summary overview of grant impact on annual budget
4. Contact list Agencies/Departments contacted with grant fraud complaint
5. Guidelines grant guidelines
6. Impact of Fraud detailed accounting of fraud concerning slush fund/illegal purchases padded invoices, sworn statements, evidence
7. Municipal Integrity email Quinn email in its entirety
8. Sample of Federal Programs sample of programs being defrauded for example ONLY
9. Sources of Financial info self-explanatory
10. Telephone Records numbers/addresses of phones impacted by grant fraud
11. Top 100 recipients
12. Grant Fraud - Common Grant Fraud Scenarios charging for costs which have not been incurred or are not attributable to the grant, charging for inflated labor costs.
The CD folder entitled Impact of Fraud summarizes the reports of fraud exposed during the short-lived Municipal Integrity investigation prompted by my complaints of corruption, personal threats, instructions to lie to auditors, etc. Details show how City departments telecommunications funding was drained of almost $1 million in the few short months being discussed during the investigation. Further testimony detailed in the folder reveals how this figure (large as it may appear) might be dwarfed by the actual amount of fraud perpetrated annually against budgets for every telephone in every City department. The impact on Federal and State funding is estimated to be approximately 12.5 % of the total illegal charges collected over the 25 year timeframe that the slush-fund/variable was used to pilfer telephone funding (including Federal and State grant awards) from every City Department. Approximately 12.5 % of illegal purchases and padded invoices directly impact Federal and State grants. Municipal Integrity's finding of unfounded/lack of evidence and fake audit records protecting guilty parties are not supported by sworn testimony and documentation amassed during the investigation and internal audit.
Paying for office remodeling/painting in part with Federal and State funding designed to provide a safety net for WIC, Healthy Start, etc. Recipients endangers our children's health. Buying a trophy case in part with Federal and State funds allocated to help fight drug trafficking or airport security impacts our citizen's safety. Paying for equipment/support as a favor and clandestinely passing the cost onto others (including grant funded groups) is illegal. Submitting hundreds of thousands of dollars of non-telephone related expenses for payment in part by grant funded programs under the guise of a telephone surcharge is criminal. Pilfering telephone budgets (including Federal and State funding) from every City department (including SAPD, SAFD/911, Library, Health, Public Works, Aviation, Community Initiatives, Parks/Rec, Code Compliance, etc.) of millions of dollars for 25 years hurt our City, our State and our Country. The fact that the practice was allowed to continue for decades is alarming. More alarming is the fact that fraudulent reports and audits were published to cover up the fraud and Freedom of Information/Open Records Laws were violated to keep the fraud secret. My termination for reporting the fraud was just another event in a long line of travesties.
Representatives of each of the fifty-eight agencies/departments contacted can readily ascertain their exposure to this fraud by reviewing the first two CD folders listed above and investigating ALL grants awarded to the City of San Antonio, Tx (including any agencies, programs, etc associated with the City of San Antonio) over the past 25 years. If a Federal grant, State grant or similar arrangement included funding for telephone support one must conclude that the agency was exposed to the fraud perpetrated by City of San Antonio employees and covered up by the Office of Municipal Integrity and others.
Numerous past and present City employees supplied sworn statements concerning the fraud during the short-lived Municipal Integrity investigation and compliance audit. A sampling of this information is contained in the CD folder Impact of Fraud.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Thank you.
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