Justice Department: Atlanta Possibly Mismanaged Grant Money

The City of Atlanta may have mismanaged hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. Justice Department “Weed and Seed" grants according to a just released report.

Jamie Dupree’s Washington Insider blog details how the Justice Department says city officials were “unable to document how money was used, and in some cases never gave investigators any answers.”

The goal of the program is to “weed out” crime and in turn “seed” neighborhood revitalization. The grant money in question was paid to the city between 2007-2010.

According to the blog at WSBRadio.com, the report questions that close to $400,000 of the $1.1 million in grants were possibly not spent according to federal guidelines. The entire report, which can be found here, concluded that the city made it difficult for the government to even put together it’s findings:

"We began the audit on September 21, 2011, but most of the documents we requested in advance were not provided for weeks or months. Some documents we requested were never provided. Over the course of the audit we followed up dozens of times with phone calls and e-mails. The city’s Weed and Seed Director sometimes did not respond to us for weeks or provided incomplete or incorrect information. Some of our questions pertaining to a payment to a former city employee were never answered."

With regards to how money from the grants was processed and spent, the Justice Department said the city "did not have or did not follow internal controls."