Public will get a say in hiring of new housing director

The Morgan City Housing Authority board plans to hold an open discussion at its March 26 meeting about the selection of a new executive director, which the authority has been without since June 2013.
The board held its monthly meeting Thursday. Housing Authority Board Chairman Victory Ho said the board needs as much information as possible to form the list of criteria for the executive director’s position. Ho requested putting discussion of job criteria for the position on the March meeting agenda.
“You need to be very concerned about this agency going forward,” Interim Director Clarence Robinson said.
Officials have put in a lot of work to bring the authority from where it was to “where we’re currently at,” Robinson said. Robinson serves as executive director for the Berwick Housing Authority as well.
A potential candidate for the job cannot come into the position just looking “for a nice little stipend” because the board should be concerned about the lives the authority supports, Robinson said. A qualified candidate should have a vision and a five-year plan for the agency, Robinson said.
“We want the best deal possible for the housing authority,” Ho said. Ho plans to contact the St. James Housing Authority and Lafayette Housing Authority to get information about the process of hiring an executive director, he said.
At January’s board meeting, the board voted to form a subcommittee consisting of commissioners Jerome Guidry and Mark Griffin Jr. to develop criteria used to hire a new director.
Guidry talked to some people planning to apply for the position, but they either do not have business degrees or have criminal records, he said. Griffin was not present at Thursday’s meeting.
The board is trying to hire a new director “at an inopportune time” in that a government shutdown looks imminent, which would affect funding for the authority, Housing Authority Accounting Technician Diana Pace said. “We’re looking at hiring somebody … and we want quality candidates, but we don’t know if we’re going to have the funding to back things up,” Pace said.
Also at January’s meeting, the board approved a resolution for an inter-agency agreement with the Berwick Housing Authority that allowed Robinson to continue as interim director of the Morgan City Housing Authority for another six months. The agreement will automatically renew for an additional 60 days unless either board terminates the agreement.
At Thursday’s meeting, Morgan City Housing Authority Attorney Robert Duffy said the board needs to decide how much it can afford to pay an executive director before setting that stipulation, Duffy said.
When Robinson was hired as interim director in July 2013, The Daily Review reported that the Morgan City authority would pay the Berwick authority $839.40 for a 24-hour week to cover Robinson’s salary and benefits along with a mileage reimbursement. Former Executive Director Charles Spann’s salary as executive director was $85,000 per year.
In December 2014, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said the housing authority “improperly paid” employees $566,544 in bonuses between November 2007 and March 2013 based on a reward policy that was altered by Tori Johnson, the authority’s housing manager. Johnson is no longer employed by the housing authority.
Johnson, a former housing manager who handled all civil service matters, received a total of $100,041 in improper rewards, according to the audit report.
Pace received $137,661 in improper rewards and $47,965 in excess pay, according to the state Legislative Auditor. Housing Manager Sandra Greene received $165,405 in improper rewards and $61,756 in excess wages, the auditor stated. Pace and Greene are still employed by Morgan City Housing Authority.
Spann received $111,657 in improper bonuses, the report stated. His first award was issued Nov. 21, 2007, and is included in the total because Spann was not a Civil Service employee, and thus, was not allowed to receive the bonus at all, the report said. Spann resigned as executive director in June 2013.
The auditor’s report said another $130,418 was improperly paid by the housing authority to three employees as raises in excess of civil service guidelines.
The improper raises were paid in six separate increases between May 2009 and June 2014, the audit stated. Some employees received a 20 percent salary increase in a five-month period in 2009, according to the investigative audit.
During Thursday’s meeting, the board also approved a contract for the demolition of four buildings at Brownell Homes.
The board awarded the contract to the low bidder Hamp’s Construction in the amount of $78,499.

This story was written by Daily Review staffer Zachary Fitzgerald. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com.