Feds say Philadelphia had mishandled security grant for Dem convention

A U.S. Department of Justice report released Thursday criticized how Philadelphia handled nearly a third of a $50 million grant for security during the July 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Following an investigation, the agency’s inspector general issued a report that said the city did not perform adequate oversight for spending by police agencies, the host committee’s expenditures or fire department overtime. It also found that Philadelphia did not do enough to ensure accountability over spending and failed to comply with federal rules for requesting funds and reporting how the money is doled out.

“We found significant deficiencies in Philadelphia’s management of the grant funds, and overall, we identified over $14 million in unallowable or unsupported expenditures,” Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said .

Philadelphia spokesman Mike Dunn said the city should have done better and is making changes but added there was no implication of fraud, waste or abuse.

“We acknowledge that there was room for improvement in how the grant was administered — that we learned from those mistakes — and we’ve implemented procedures to make sure those issues are addressed,” Dunn said.

The inspector general’s office said it found “significant deficiencies” involving about $14.9 million of the federal grant.

A parallel review of Justice Department security grant spending at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland found it generally complied with federal rules, the one exception involving record keeping about $3.2 million worth of vehicles purchased with the money.

The Philadelphia report said overtime paid for the city’s fire department was not based on actual costs, but instead used a “weighed average,” making it difficult to assess whether some payments were valid. Auditors also found about $9,000 in duplicate costs.

“We found instances where PFD submitted overtime requests for reimbursement on days they were scheduled to work regular hours, and instances where duplicate overtime was included in PFD’s reimbursement worksheet,” the report said.

Dunn said the weighted average method was required “to compensate for the reporting limitations of the city’s legacy payroll system, which did not allow for distinguishing between overtime specific to DNC versus overtime for other reasons.”