At the City Council Oversight Committee on Thursday, the committee heard from the Food & Shelter executive director at its first meeting since an audit led to accusations the organization was mismanaging funds.

At the City Council Study Session on May 21, the City of Norman’s Municipal Auditor, Shaakira Calnick, detailed a draft compliance audit of operations, processes, and procedures of Food & Shelter and A Friend’s House for the period of Nov. 1, 2022 through Febr. 29, 2023.

The audit detailed 19 comments, specifically mentioning the lack of fire watch personnel and training, the termination of Black Jack Investigation security services, and minimal oversight and monitoring due to a lack of staff. The audit also pulled into question the expenditures of the shelter, with the words “mismanaged funds” used when discussing accounting.

The City of Norman and Food & Shelter entered into a contract in the fall of 2022 for a warming and emergency shelter at 109 W. Gray St., originally intended to be both a temporary contract and location during the winter months.

“A contract was drafted and executed by the City of Norman by city staff. City staff drafted that contract in its entirety. Every bit of that language was your language,” April Doshier, executive director of Food & Shelter, said at the Oversight Committee meeting on June 13. “The Food & Shelter Board reviewed that contract and did not make any negotiations, any changes, any amendments, approved it, signed it and we executed it. And to this day, we have executed that contract to its tee. We’ve not violated one aspect of that contract, period. There’s no evidence to that.”

Food & Shelter is a nonprofit organization focusing on providing food, shelter, and other resources to people experiencing homelessness. Other services include a Share Center with a food pantry and resource center, a dining room service with two hot meals a day, a day shelter and an emergency homeless shelter.

Food & Shelter also has a re-housing program, permanent supportive housing and prevention assistance.

In 2022, Food & Shelter responded to the city’s request for a proposed new operator of the emergency shelter. F&S drafted a projected budget with wage projections, vendor cost estimates, and cost estimates based on the previous shelter that was operated by the City of Norman, according to a recent press release from Food & Shelter.

In 2023, the city did not agree on the purchase of real estate for a permanent location for the shelter. The City and Food & Shelter continue to operate on the temporary contract agreement.

According to the contract signed in October 2022, the city agreed to pay Food & Shelter an initial amount of $85,968.40 and then $54,832,40 a month to operate the shelter. The contract does not designate how the funds are to be spent or if the funds need to be spent in its entirety each month.

In the audit report, Comment 15 goes into detail on shelter expenditures.

The initial budget proposed by Food & Shelter listed $19,658.40 for monthly personnel costs, which would equal $314,534.40 for the period the audit covered. The analysis for payroll expenses indicated payroll expenses cost the shelter $406,405.57, which would be $90,971.17 over budget, according to the audit report.

The subcontractor costs were proposed at a total of $356,400 from November 2022 to September 2023. Food & Shelter spent $345,640.00 on this cost from October 2022 to September 2023, nearly $11,000 under budget.

Food & Shelter was over budget by $48,348.12 for monthly operation costs. These costs were originally proposed to be $43,904. The organization was over budget by $2,610.11, according to the audit.

The total financial analysis summary indicates that the City of Norman paid Food & Shelter a total amount of $908,454.40, which is in line with the amount agreed upon in the original contract and two amendments, according to the city attorney’s response on the report.

Where the claim of “mismanaged funds” comes into play is the auditor’s comparison of how much the City paid Food & Shelter and how much the organization actually spent, which was $878,076.80.

“Funds allocated to expenditures such as regular wages paid, in addition to salary, to the Executive Director, unlearned overtime, and unreconciled operational expenses, indicted mismanaged funds in the amount of $9,835.60” the audit report said.

The remainder of the difference is $20,542.20, which the audit said was unaccounted for.

However, at the Oversight Committee meeting, Doshier said she, nor any member of the staff and Board of Directors, was asked about the “mismanaged” or unaccounted-for funds.

“If those questions had been asked there, you would have found out that our board has really strong financial controls,” Doshier said. “I don’t have permission to approve even $1 of expenses. Our board approves all of that. Every single dollar. I don’t have the ability to pay myself, our board has to approve all of that. We have very strong financial controls. And there’s a reason we get audited every year and we have no findings on any audits.”

Doshier said that when A Friend’s House first opened, and for the first few months, expenses were higher than expected, but as the shelter was open longer and things were settling, the organization was spending less money than the City was paying Food & Shelter. They were able to save more money after terminating a contract with Black Jack Investigations.

A large portion of the money saved was put into savings and into salaries to increase wages.

“Rather than, again, rushing around at the end of the month and trying to find anything to spend money on, we just kept that money in our bank accounts,” she said “That’s a very different thing than missing money, very different. The money is in the bank, supervised by our board of directors. They’re waiting for legitimate expenses. That’s a prudent financial management practice period. I would think taxpayers would be grateful that we weren’t out there just finding things to spend money on.”

Doshier said it was good that Food & Shelter and A Friend’s House had the money in savings as they’ve had to purchase liability insurance, per the contract requirements, and have had to start replacing some of the mattresses.

Another point of contention between Food & Shelter and the audit report was calling out April Doshier’s base salary, which is listed as $95,370.08 for 2022 and $101,152.25 for 2023.

In the meeting, Dossier told committee members that her salary is not paid by tax dollars in any capacity.

“It’s crucial, really, that you understand that none of my salary is paid by tax dollars, not city tax dollars, state tax dollars or federal tax dollars, not one penny of it is paid by the tax dollar,” Doshier said. “The key point really I want to emphasize that addresses that concern is the source of my compensation and that is, its Food & Shelter board approved funding.”

She also made the statement that she felt it was incredibly inappropriate for the auditor and committee members to have a conversation about her salary in public and on the public record.

While the audit in discussion is not the final version, it has brought up several other concerns that the auditor, the City of Norman, and residents have about Food & Shelter and A Friend’s House. Ultimately, reading the audit report, many in the meeting agreed that several of the items mentioned stemmed from a poorly written contract.

The head of the City Council Oversight Committee Ward 2 councilmember Lauren Schueler apologized to Doshier for how the audit and public opinion of the audit were handled. Schueler said the board needs to consider consequences and that people often take the information, have little context on the situation at hand, and will pick and choose what they want to hear.

Schueler also mentioned the need to have a conversation between the two parties about updates and changes to the current contract, which as it stands now, is quite vague.

“I want to say that on the record, I think that the city has much culpability in what the public has concerns about, as well as human culture, like, we as a partnership,” she said. “And we were the ones who wrote the contract. You signed the contract, you agreed, and we were entered into an agreement for you to provide that service. So, I think that we also need to take some accountability as the city on those things. And I think I’m glad to hear that you’re open to the conversation about what the contract looks like and kind of updating and changing those things.”

The City, Food & Shelter, and A Friend’s House are still waiting for a final version of the audit and are hopeful to meet in the future to work together to create a better and more detailed contract for the shelter.

“We just try to reiterate that there’s a lot of good that is happening at the shelter,” Schueler said. “And I think it would be a big mistake to close it without any future plan for a location or what we’re going to do because people are being helped.”

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