RICHMOND, Va. -- A recent audit of Richmond's Finance Department revealed deficient customer service, poor management, and unorganized accounting of taxpayer documents.
Through a public records request, CBS 6 obtained an August 27 report completed by consultant Anne Seward, contracted by the city to help reform the finance department.
Invoices showed finance director Sheila Whitefirst contacted Seward to discuss the department's needs on January 11, right around when restaurant owners started voicing concerns about unfair meals tax late fees and collection practices.
Seward was officially contracted in March at $200 per hour and has billed the city more than $130,000 so far for her services. Her contract, which is in effect through December, states that Seward is to make her recommendations in writing.
When CBS 6 initially requested those written recommendations in July, the city stated there were no responsive records at that time.
"If we consider this a problem, which many of us do – not only those who work here in the City of Richmond but also those in the community consider it a problematic department that needs fixing, that needs investment, that needs reform, then I'm going to do everything I can to get it right. And if a director needs more help, more high-level help from a subject matter expert like Ms. Seward, then I want to give them that help," Mayor Levar Stoney said during a September press conference when asked why hiring the consultant was necessary.
Audit findings
Seward's report detailed many customer service staff deficiencies including employees who were observed sleeping at their desks and taking unpermitted breaks.
She found employees had poor communication skills and displayed unprofessional conduct, and Seward observed high levels of "attitudes and drama."
Workers also lacked skills and knowledge, Seward found.
According to the report, managers and supervisors were not monitoring customer concerns.
For example, email inboxes were unmonitored containing 7,000 messages with no response. There were six months of ignored voicemails and 3,400 personal property tax service requests that had not been addressed for eight months.
Jeff Marks, who previously owned a business in Richmond, said he was not surprised by the findings of the audit based on his prior experiences with finance staff.
The City of Richmond sued Marks, alleging he had not paid his business taxes, only to find out that the city actually owed him more than $800 for a credit they never told him about.
“They were just slow to respond and didn't seem to have a clue as to what was going on," Marks said. “I'd ask, 'What do we possibly owe?' And they couldn't tell us."
The report showed that desk audits turned up 1,001 unworked, unfiled, and unsecured business documents as well as unprocessed mail records.
Additional findings included:
- Personal property tax bills dating back to 2022 were not billed on time
- Vehicle updates through the DMV were not processed to update personal property records dating back to 2017
- Business license tax bills dating back to 2022 were printed but never mailed
- Various business forms were never processed
- Business accounts dating back to 2022 were assigned incorrect filing dates for billing
Seward found that poor mid-management decisions regarding the implementation of RVAPay, the city's new online billing system, resulted in account errors.
Managers also made bad recruitment and promotion decisions and did not provide an onboarding plan to include comprehensive training for new hires.
Seward also noted poor data integrity, a lack of quality controls to catch staff errors, numerous manual and paper processes, and outdated forms.
Marks summarized the findings as a "really sad state of affairs."
He blamed Mayor Levar Stoney, who is now in his last year in this office, and high-level leadership for allowing the problems to ever reach this point.
“This was all under his watch," Marks said. “It's finally getting dealt with at the 11th hour here. It's pitiful.”
Last week, CBS 6 asked Mayor Stoney whether he took responsibility for the finance department's shortcomings.
"The first four years, we had certain priorities, turning in those financial reports on time. Because of the inability to turn those financial reports in, we weren't able to actually upgrade our credit rating on Wall Street," Stoney responded. "In the second term, as I stated, we focused on full reform of the department."
Seward outlined steps the department needs to take to address each of her findings.
Those fixes included developing extra training, new standard operating procedures, coaching and performance management, and reorganizing the department.
Many of the corrective actions have already been marked as completed while others are still in the works.
You can read through the report yourself here.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
