RICHMOND, Va. — Before the Richmond Finance Department issued more than 8,000 incorrect rebate checks, the department had no standard protocols in place that could have helped prevent the issues, a city official confirmed.
On Monday, Interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg gave a presentation to city council members about the errors. She said Finance Director Sheila White was unavailable to speak to the council due to it being "her busiest time of the year."
In March, the department printed 59,000 total checks that were to be mailed to property owners as part of a real estate tax relief approved by the council late last year. However, about 8,000 checks were addressed to the wrong person.
Of those incorrect checks, Joy-Hogg said about 3,000 were distributed to the public. A small handful of residents actually cashed the incorrect checks, and Joy-Hogg said the Finance Department will try to get that money back.
There were additional problems with some other checks, too. For example, Joy-Hogg said about 2,000 property owners from the wrong tax year were issued a rebate, but she does not yet know whether those incorrect payees were distributed a check.
Joy-Hogg said the incorrect checks will "go stale" in mid-June, and then the department will reprint accurate checks and mail those by June 30.
"How it feels for residents is that the city is really good at taking their money but not so good about giving it back," said Council Member Kenya Gibson (3rd District) in response to Joy-Hogg's presentation. "We're not building trust."
Some council members expressed frustration with the mistakes and questioned why there were seemingly no adequate quality controls that could have caught the problems earlier in the process.
Joy-Hogg acknowledged that the quality measures were "obviously not sufficient." She said the Finance Department had no standard operating procedures in place for a rebate process because rebates are "not a usual occurrence."
But Councilor Ellen Robertson (6th District) pointed out that the council passed a law several months ago directing the department to issue the checks and questioned why no standard operating procedures were developed then.
"SOPs should be drafted to control the execution and administration of the ordinance. Is it your policy to put SOPs in place to support the execution or administration of an ordinance?" Robertson asked.
"In a perfect world, yes," Joy-Hogg answered.
"But that wasn't done in this case?" Robertson asked.
"Correct," Joy-Hogg said.
Gibson argued that since the Finance Department is supposed to issue credits for overpayments, there should be a "universal" refund process that the department can rely on, but Joy-Hogg said "overpayments and credits are two completely separate processes from what this is."
Joy-Hogg said new SOPs have since been developed to prevent future errors and that the city auditor's office will be reviewing the rebate process, but some council members remained skeptical.
"Honestly, I'm not feeling any real comfort that the taxpayers— that we won't continue to have some glitches that have not been addressed," Robertson said.
While two council members also posed questions as to why both department deputy directors, who were just hired in October in an effort to strengthen the Finance Department's operations, were already gone from their positions, Joy-Hogg declined to comment on personnel matters.
"It sounds like the people who are trying to make change and point out issues are the ones that seem to be falling on the sword," said Council Member Sarah Abubaker (4th District).
"That is not accurate, and I will leave it there, because then I get down a personnel road, and I don't want to go there," Joy-Hogg said.
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