Cathy Jackson, Director of the Miami-Dade Department of Audit and Management, finally released today her long-awaited audit of the Wackenhut Corp., which holds several major security contracts with the county, including the county’s lucrative contract for posts at Metrorail stations.
As reported in the Herald, the audit reveals, to no one’s surprise, that Wackenhut over-billed the county for millions of dollars worth of work that was never performed, including “ghost posts,” which went unfilled but were billed anyway to create the appearance of a fully-staffed Metrorail when, in fact, Wackenhut suffered a personnel shortage.
This much has been known – or strongly suspected, anyway – for some time. Besides the Herald, local blog Eye on Miami has featured particularly good coverage of the ongoing Wackenhut fiasco, and New Times has written several stories about the company as well.
But the real story lies in questions as yet unanswered:
- How exactly did Wackenhut get the contract in the first place? Why weren't these problems foreseen by the county?
- How long have county officials known about the over-billing, and why did it take so long to produce the audit?
- Why did Cathy Jackson, County Manager George Burgess, and Mayor Alvarez refuse to be deposed in a parallel investigation of Wackenhut being conducted by a private attorney representing a group of whistle-blowers – especially when the county itself will receive the bulk of monies won in that suit?
- What will become of the Metrorail contract if Wackenhut is unable to pay back its debt to the county?
- What will become of Alanis Security, a company which subcontracts under Wackenhut on Metrorail and which has repeatedly failed to pay its employees (New Times wrote about this in February; recent conversations with Alanis employees indicate that paychecks are still bouncing regularly).
Stay tuned,
It's about time that the county started doing something about this spurious billing by Wackenhut. Wackenhut might have been a good security company at one point, but they have turned into one of the most mismanaged and unethical firms in the country. Not only are we losing millions of dollars in fraudulent billing, but commuters are being put at risk when guards are not present. Would we allow the police dept. to be this negligent? Then why do we put up with shoddy performance from private contractors for so long? Wackenhut also happens to be the same company that has been caught sleeping on the job at nuclear sites around the country, including repeated incidents at FPL's Turkey Point nuclear plant. I'm glad Mayor Alvarez has issued this ultimatum to Wackenhut, lets hope that FPL CEO Lewis Hay will follow suit soon.
Posted at: May 8, 2008 8:20 PM