Jan 14, 2013 - Tavares, FL
Apparently, starting seven years ago, Polk County, FL staff used an incorrect method that resulted in providing incorrect, sometimes vacant addresses for garbage pickup to the local waste services firm they had on contract.
This blunder went on for seven years, and the County overcharged residents $1.46-million over the 7 years, and then paid the funds to the waste services firm. Now the County is trying to get the waste provider to pay back the funds even though the County made the mistake.Teh Board is trying to blame the vendor for the issue, but that is like trying to get an employee to pay back excess paychecks due to a blunder by staff, especially 7 years later.
My experience as an internal audit manager for 18 years is that both government and companies many times has low level staff make decisions without oversight or performance audits and these things go on for years. At Nissan Motor Corp., staff used the wrong formula to set reserves for auto warranties, and they over collected the reserves by $1-million. Once the mistake was found by internal audit, that $1-million went right to the "bottom line".
Good luck... now we know why Polk County reneged on paying its agreed share of the costs of the 4 Corners library built by Lake County. They aren't any good at managing their operations.
vj
