Report Says Miami-Dade Poverty Agency Was Lax

from CBS 4 Miami

A Miami-Dade County audit made public on Friday accused a nonprofit anti-poverty group funded with more than $68 million in public money failed in the most basic oversight of loans.

The audit, reported by CBS4 news partners The Miami Herald explained how some monies went to shaky startup companies and friends and relatives of the group's trustees. The report was written by county auditor Cathy Jackson.

The agency in question is called The Miami-Dade Empowerment Zone Trust, closely tied to county government since its creation in 1999. Jackson writes that it helped few businesses, created few jobs and met few goals, while its staff ran a haphazard bookkeeping operation that spanned 44 accounts at 10 banks.

Trust Chairman T. Willard Fair and President and CEO Aundra Wallace did not return messages to the newspaper. Targets of county audits are typically given 30 days to respond before reports are made public, but Miami-Dade County spokeswoman Victoria Mallette said the trust had declined.

Trust leaders had earlier told auditors their success was hampered by ''unfulfilled financial promises by the federal government'' of at least $10 million a year. In fact, federal support fell every year, as low as $3.5 million over the three-year period ending in September 2006.

The Miami Herald will publish a four-part series beginning Sunday of its investigation into the nonprofit agency.

The Herald writes that it uncovered a long list of failed business ventures, overdue loans and absent supervision by the Trust's 17-member board and, in some cases, the County Commission. The trust's now-infamous failed project to build a biotech park in Liberty City appears in the audit as just one of nearly 20 projects that squandered money earmarked to create jobs and businesses in Miami-Dade's neediest communities.

The trust was created to oversee federal Empowerment Zone grants.