HARAHAN, LA (AP) — The state Legislative Auditor's Office has found that Harahan under previous mayors failed to collect some property taxes and improperly extended benefits to City Council members and some staffers.
Those and other findings released Monday were part of an investigative audit requested by current Mayor Tina Miceli, who succeeded Vinny Mosca in January.
The audit found the city failed to collect $163,000 in delinquent property taxes and interest on 333 properties since 1995.
The audit says the city improperly used $47,000 in public money to provide health insurance benefits to ineligible city employees and former employees.
The city improperly paid $58,404 in health and life insurance premiums for City Council members after Mosca ordered the benefits extended to them in May 2013.
The city paid $45,300 to five contract inspectors in the Regulatory Department since 2012. The inspectors were paid flat monthly fees without invoices or any record of how much work they performed. They also were reimbursed for $9,120 for fuel they didn't back up with mileage reports, and there was no legal requirement to reimburse three of the five.
The city violated the Local Government Budgeting Act when Mosca left office without having submitted a budget for the 2015 fiscal year.
The audit also found instances of budgets being submitted late; inadequate and outdated contracts with vendors; missing public records, including bid records, receipt books and invoices, which may violate state law; and unrecorded employee pay raises.
"In general, city records were poorly organized and in some instances not available," the auditors said.
Mosca defended his record Monday, telling The New Orleans Advocate’s Chad Calder a meager tax base and a small administrative staff required a case-by-case approach to get results that constituents wanted.
"As mayor, I was user-friendly," he said. "I'm content to know that I tried to provide what I could to improve the quality of life of the citizens during my administration."
Mosca said he tried to recoup delinquent property taxes through liens when properties were sold or handed down through succession, rather than setting up a system for tax sales.
