BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
GREEN COVE SPRINGS—Clay County Sheriff’s Office CFO Vicki Adams told Clay County Commissioners that because the office did not properly track administrative costs for a grant, the county must forfeit $15,662.75 of grant funds.
The $313,255 grant was from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and paid for the installation of a generator.
“Unfortunately, with turnover, these administrative costs were not tracked,” Adams said, “and I don’t have the records to re-create. I fully recognize the importance of taking on that opportunity in the future, and we are working with the county to implement a process to make sure that when a grant does afford the opportunity to try to recoup administrative costs, we have the records in place in order to establish that and seek reimbursement.”
Commissioner Jim Renninger recommended that all future grants be administered by the county’s grant department and not by the county’s operating departments or independent agencies like the sheriff’s office.
“We have a grant department,” Renninger said. “We have certified grant writers, certified grant managers. We have a skill set here that they don’t have, and tonight was a reflection of that. It costed the county $15,000 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Renninger also said the person responsible for the oversight that costed the county over $15,000 is no longer employed by the government.
