Macon Water Authority’s newest board member wants a grand jury investigation into financial and operational irregularities she’s seen in recent months.
Thursday morning, former county commissioner and city councilwoman Elaine Lucas, who was elected to District 1 last fall, held a news conference in the MWA board room that drew local NAACP President Gwen Westbrooks, Macon-Bibb Democratic Committee’s Treasurer Lynn Snyder, and two other supporters.
“It’s not about making trouble, but it’s about having some good trouble and this is good trouble,” Lucas said.
While she shared concerns of constituents struggling to pay rising water bills and the authority’s lack of advocacy for them, the crux of the quest for a criminal investigation follows a media report of alleged misuse of purchasing cards by the authority’s top executives.
“When you violate the policy and you spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in violation of a purchasing card policy, I think that’s a crime and that was done a number of times,” Lucas said.
Lucas specifically mentioned a $760 charge but did not provide details on other expenses in question. On March 10, The Macon Newsroom filed an open records request for purchasing card reports and/or receipts dating back to 2020, but has yet to receive them.
MWA President and CEO Ron Shipman declined to comment on Lucas’ request for a criminal investigation although he said in the March meeting that he welcomed closer inspection. Shipman has stated in recent meetings that there was no clear-cut purchasing card policy that he was asked to sign, but did mention signing off on expense reports.
Shipman also said since taking over as head of the authority in 2022, he informally relaxed spending limits that he found were inadequate for doing business because the $499 transaction limit was too low for buying emergency supplies. However, he also implemented stricter reporting standards for filing expense reports such as requiring them to be filed in a timely manner and to include receipts or file a lost receipt form.
In recent months, authority discussions have been wrought with accusations of Shipman lying about the policy, altering it without board permission and abusing the p-card, which he cut in two during the March meeting after saying he didn’t need one if it was going to cause problems.
Trail of mistrust
During the February board meeting that followed a news article alleging purchasing card abuse and policy violations, MWA District 2’s Desmond Brown requested a copy of the p-card “do’s and don’ts.”
Days before the March meeting, Shipman emailed the board some documents IT found under the title of “purchasing card policy” in one former employee’s files dating back to 2019.
Those documents were the “purchasing card program” that included instructions on using company credit cards for purchases and services up to $499, a list of cardholder responsibilities and a cardholder agreement with a place for signatures.
In the April 3 meeting, Shipman left a stack of more than three dozen documents tracing the mention of purchasing cards in MWA board agendas and employee files.
He said IT’s search found no specific “p-card policy” only the “purchasing policy” which states “the policy is not intended to eliminate participation in business related functions and activities which occur in conjunction with seminars, exhibits, meetings, and presentations, which incorporate lunches, dinners and entertainment.”
Many of the expenses in question dealt with meals and travel.
Shipman’s denial of a “policy” led to accusations last week and in the news conference that Shipman is not being honest.
“We understood there was a policy, but presto change-o, a month later, there is no purchasing policy, and one is going to be developed well, which is it?” Lucas asked in the news conference. “You know, somebody’s lying, somebody’s being deceitful, and so we want that kind of thing dealt with.”
Following Shipman cutting up his purchasing card during the March meeting, Lucas said she was told there was no credit card available to book travel for herself and District 2’s Desmond Brown to attend the American Water Works Association conference in Denver in June.
Traditionally, MWA executives with purchasing cards paid for rooms and flights.
Lucas wants an ethics inquiry into alleged disparate treatment of Black board members and along party lines, although the authority is nonpartisan.
“The two Black and Democratic members are met with resistance every step of the way, even to the point of being asked to use my own private credit card to travel to a national conference. And I’m newly elected, I need to go and see what the industry says should be our goals, how we should be working with our communities, what the latest things are, techniques are,” Lucas said.
Although Shipman destroyed his card, she suggested he could still use it to book their travel by using the card numbers.
It was those type of group travel expenses and meals that were highlighted as possible abuses of the purchasing card. For example, the news story that first mentioned the expenditures said Shipman signed off on a $760 “short plane hop” to Catalina Island during a conference in California.
In the news conference, Lucas specifically referenced that excursion.
“I don’t plan on this trip in June to take a helicopter hop to the island, as was done with this administration. These folks are still here. They’re still here,” Lucas said. “And so I am irritated that there is disparate treatment of board members and there is a lack of structure.”
Both Shipman and MWA Board Chairman Gary Bechtel dispute that accusation. In March, they told The Macon Newsroom that there was no plane trip, only a charge for a group to take a ferry to Catalina Island to look at their water treatment plant that converts salt water and see their septic system and its unique pumping system because of the hilly terrain.
Although some spouses were along for the trip, Macon-Bibb County representative on the authority board, Bill Howell said he reimbursed the authority for his wife’s expenses, which is standard practice.
During the news conference, The Macon Newsroom shared Shipman’s explanation about the ferry, but Lucas said she does not know for sure because she wasn’t there.
“I guess what happens in Catalina stays in Catalina,” she said in response.
Howell, along with MWA Finance Chair Dwight Jones and Shipman have said a formal purchasing card policy is needed.
Last week, the board voted 6-1 in favor of Shipman drawing up a new policy with the help of legal counsel.
Only Brown voted against Shipman’s input on a new policy after accusing him of contradicting himself on whether a prior policy existed.
When MWA District 4’s Frank Patterson scolded him for making public accusations about an employee, Brown motioned to go into executive session.
Georgia law allows agencies to go into executive session to discuss personnel issues but the law spells out that this is specific to “discussing or deliberating upon the appointment, employment, compensation, hiring, disciplinary action or dismissal, or periodic evaluation or rating of a public officer or employee or interviewing applicants for the position of the executive head of an agency.” It’s not clear if an executive session is permissible for Board members to just air grievances.
Brown motioned to adjourn and Bechtel took him up on it which ended the heated discussion before reaching the end of the agenda.
After the news conference, Lucas also noted the board’s reluctance to take the matter behind closed doors.
“I just think an impartial group should look at all this and they can clear the air,” she said. “If my concerns are unwarranted, I will say those were unwarranted.”
Lucas called for a complete financial audit to explain pending rate increases, a probe of whether there are conflicts of interest in business dealings, an evaluation of Shipman’s performance as CEO, reinstatement of a separate day for committee meetings, and she wants the public to sign a petition calling on the authority and Macon-Bibb County’s mayor and county commission to oppose any unnecessary increases in water rates and initiate an audit of finance and operations.
Late last year when approving the latest rate hike, the MWA cited hundreds of millions of dollars in pending projects and the authority’s relatively low rates compared to similar water systems in the state.
Lucas did say she did not think the pending rate hikes had anything to do with alleged misuse of p-cards but mentioned an “uncaring spirit” and lack of empathy for those struggling to pay their bills.
While she’s concerned about retaliation, she said, “I take good notes. I do hope that people are not stupid enough to try to retaliate against anybody, because that’s illegal too, right?”
NAACP’s Westbrooks said she supports Lucas’ quest for an investigation and questioned why the authority did not support Brown’s request in March for an investigation of all p-card purchases.
“In order for us to trust what our board members and what this water authority does, they need to be transparent,” Westbrooks said.
Lucas wants the inquiry and audit as soon as possible, although she said she had not yet made a formal request of the district attorney.
“I just don’t want there to be a cover up and people sit up and say, there’s a witch hunt. There’s no witch hunt. It’s a truth hunt,” she said.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at fabian_lj@mercer.edu or 478-301-2976.
