$500 a week for bathroom cleaning? Lower Richland park scrutinized for expenses

A nonprofit that used to manage Pinewood Lake Park in Lower Richland claimed to spend $500 a week on bathroom and office cleaning and improperly sought reimbursement from county tax dollars, Richland County staff members say.

That cleaning cost — which the staff said was six times higher than it could have been — is just one example of spending by the Pinewood Lake Park Foundation that was flagged by Richland County staff. County Councilman Norman Jackson has been accused of pressuring county staff to pay the foundation's expenses, even though officials say the foundation has not met county standards to receive funding.

The Pinewood Lake Park Foundation has requested reimbursement for more than $48,000 in expenses between July 2017 and January that either do not qualify for the requested tourism promotion funds or have not been backed up by receipts or proof of actual services provided, according to documents prepared by county staff.

The foundation's expenses and Jackson's alleged intervention with staff members led an assistant county administrator this week to accuse Jackson of bullying and harassment. That allegation prompted County Council to request an investigation into Jackson by the State Law Enforcement Division.

Last week, a divided County Council voted to pay the foundation $12,175.92 for expenses the staff deemed compliant with county standards. Jackson, the council member most closely tied to Pinewood Lake Park, abstained from the vote, along with council members Gwen Kennedy and Chip Jackson.

That vote came after a closed-door discussion about the issue that, according to multiple council members, prompted Assistant County Administrator Sandra Yudice to accuse Jackson of bullying. In a letter to council members the day after that meeting, Yudice said Jackson had pressured her repeatedly to meet with the director of the Pinewood Lake Park Foundation and ensure the foundation's vendors were paid.

"Among other things and without explicitly telling me to pay the Foundation but alluding to it, (Jackson) indicated that the Foundation's vendors needed to be paid, including entertainment groups from Jamaica that they had brought to the events at the park," Yudice wrote to council members in a letter obtained by The State newspaper.

Her letter continued, "The Foundation, with Mr. Jackson's help, routinely makes requests to staff and ... have made requests of me that require us to approve payments that will put the Council, the County and staff at risk because those payment requests lack proper documentation and support."

Reached by a reporter Friday afternoon, Jackson said, "I'm not involved with the foundation. I don't know anything about it." He declined to answer any questions related to the Pinewood Lake Park Foundation. Asked whether he had pressured staff members to pay the foundation, Jackson said he had "no comments."

On Monday, council members voted to request the SLED investigation into Jackson. Jackson abstained from that vote, too.

A SLED spokesman confirmed Wednesday there is an investigation underway involving Richland County but would not be more specific about it.

Jackson has championed the Pinewood Lake Park project for the better part of a decade, since he began encouraging the county to buy a swath of land at Pinewood Lake, sometimes known as Caughman Pond, off Old Garners Ferry Road in Jackson's Lower Richland district. Anchored by the lake, the park features walking trails, several picnic shelters, an office and bathrooms.

The Pinewood Lake Park Foundation was hired by the county to manage the park in 2015. That arrangement lasted more than a year before the county took away the foundation's management responsibilities and gave them to the Richland County Conservation Commission beginning July 1, 2017.

At that time, the Conservation Commission indicated it could work with the foundation to help staff the park with volunteers and coordinate park events such as bingo nights, a summer Wet and Wild event, a Halloween horror trail and a Christmas lights event, all funded in part by hospitality tax dollars, which are meant to promote tourism activities.

But according to the Conservation Commission, the foundation refused to sign a formal agreement outlining its role at the park. In recent a memo to County Council members, the Conservation Commission said attempts to negotiate a proper arrangement with the foundation had been "taxing" and unsuccessful.

The memo said the Conservation Commission has had ongoing concerns about the foundation's financial responsibility.

"A number of irregularities have occurred in the financial management of the Park," the memo read. Hospitality tax "reimbursement has been and continues to be an issue with (the Foundation). This unsatisfactory arrangement continues despite numerous efforts by staff to educate (the Foundation) about what H-Tax funds can and cannot be used for at the Park."

Invoices and emails among county staff members and Liewendelyn Hart, the foundation's director, provide insight into some of those financial concerns.

For instance, from July 2017 to January 2018, the Pinewood Lake Park Foundation claimed to spend $15,000, or $500 a week, for twice-weekly cleaning of the park's bathrooms and office space. During that time, the foundation had no official role in the park's operations, other than the hospitality tax grants it had received for tourism promotion.

The invoice provided to the county for reimbursement indicates the cleaning was done by Carolina Consultants Group LLC. The registered agent of that business is Hart — the same registered agent for the Pinewood Lake Park Foundation. That indicates Hart's nonprofit hired her own business for cleaning services and billed the county for it.

Those services, according to an email to Hart from county planning director Tracy Hegler, were charged at six times the cost that Hegler was quoted by a cleaning company for the same work.

In a March 13 email to Hart, Hegler said the county could not pay the $15,000 cleaning invoice for a number of reasons: There was no documentation that services were actually provided or that payment was actually made; there was no proof that competitive bids were sought for the service, and there is evidence that "the same work could be done for substantially less expense;" and there was no instruction from County Council or county staff for the foundation to have this work done.

Hart did not respond to questions emailed by a reporter Friday afternoon.

Despite county staff's ongoing concerns about the foundation's financial responsibility, the foundation has secured tens of thousands of dollars each year in hospitality tax grants from County Council, mostly at the behest of Jackson. For the current year that started July 1, 2017, the foundation was awarded at least $83,000 in hospitality tax grants.

In addition to concerns about the cleaning invoice, county staff's questions about the foundation's expenses include that a single business, Perfect Choice Promotion, was used for work on all the foundation's hosted events and accounted for more than $38,000 of the expenses claimed by the foundation since July 1.

That indicates competitive bids were not sought for the work, meaning "we potentially have taxpayer funded Hospitality Tax budget dollars being used to pay amounts that are over and above what would normally be charged with open and free market competition," county staff wrote in a recent memo to council members.

Other problems with the foundation's requests for reimbursement include an unsigned contract for a DJ without a Richland County business license, a typed letter from a catering company rather than a receipt for payment, and expenses ranging from decorations to food to computer usage that do not qualify for hospitality tax use, according to county staff.

This story was originally published May 11, 2018 at 5:01 PM with the headline "$500 a week for bathroom cleaning? Lower Richland park scrutinized for expenses."