LR housing agency suspends 2 with pay in probe of contract

Two Metropolitan Housing Alliance employees were suspended with pay Friday while the agency investigates a more than $5,000 contract that one of them awarded to himself.

Rodney Forte, executive director of the alliance, said Friday that Marvin Akins, coordinator of the capital fund program and contracts, and Ron Hooks, finance director, were suspended with pay as of 5 p.m. Friday.

“Officially, we have suspended two employees pending an internal investigation done in conjunction with our legal counsel,” Forte said.

“I did not set a specific time frame for the investigation, but we will do a thorough review of the facts, keeping in mind the directive in our personnel policy that urges us to complete these investigations as quickly as possible. But it’ll take as long as it needs to take,” he said.

The alliance is Little Rock’s independent public-housing agency, funded mostly through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money. The agency manages about $37 million in property assets and provides housing assistance to 8,000 Little Rock residents through various programs.

The chairman of the agency’s board of commissioners, Carolyn Polite, referred questions to Forte. He confirmed that he had notified the board, as well as the regional office of HUD about both the suspensions and the investigation.

The investigation began this week after agency procurement documents and corporate filings at the Arkansas secretary of state’s office showed that Akins had awarded a contract to a company that he was listed as owning at the secretary of state’s office.

Akins said in an interview Wednesday that he does not own the company, Homemenders Inc. He said he sold the company about three years ago but had done the work under the company’s name through an agreement with the current owner.

The contract for $5,200 was to mow and haul debris from a 20-acre piece of land off of East Sixth Street where the former Hollingsworth Grove housing project was located.

Akins said the former executive director of the agency, Shelly Ehenger, had told him to do the work. Ehenger was suspended during the procurement process, which took place in June.

Ehenger’s suspension began in May 2012 amidst personnel complaints about nepotism and bad hiring practices. The board voted to fire Ehenger in August, and during the interim she was not allowed to be involved in the agency’s day-to-day operations.

According to agency procurement policy, Akins was supposed to solicit at least three bids from qualified companies. He was not required to advertise the contract because it was worth less than $20,000.

He obtained two bids on June 7 from companies that had done work for the agency in the past - one for $5,850 and one for $5,500. On June 14, Homemenders Inc. submitted a bid for $5,200, and Akins awarded the contract the same day.

He also submitted a check request on June 14 to Hooks, who was the interim executive director during Ehenger’s suspension. A check was issued on June 15, according to the documents.

Forte would not confirm why Hooks was suspended as part of the investigation, saying it was part of the ongoing investigation and also a personnel matter.

Hooks was Akins’ direct supervisor and had to sign off on the contract and payment before either was awarded.

Akins was traveling back from a HUD training conference in Las Vegas on Friday and did not answer his cell phone. Hooks had left the office before information about the suspensions was released Friday night. A phone listing for Hooks in Hot Springs rings to a disconnected number.

The agency’s policies ban employees with direct or indirect interest in a company from participating in a bid process.

Arkansas and the federal government also have procurement rules that ban an employee from bidding on contracts that include state or federal money.

According to Arkansas statute 14-169-209 (a): “No commissioner or employee of a housing authority shall acquire any interest, direct or indirect, in any housing project or in any property included or planned to be included in any project, nor shall he have any interest, direct or indirect, in any contract or proposed contract for materials or services to be furnished or used in connection with any housing project.”

Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson, the city’s liaison on the alliance’s board of commissioners, said he hopes the agency could begin to redirect its focus to its mission soon.

“It is very disconcerting that we’ve had multiple investigations over the past year,” he said. “I’m supportive of the new executive director and his plan to get us back on track. I’m concerned that the investigations and allegations involved therein may have distracted the housing authority from fulfilling its mission of providing adequate housing for low- to middle-income families. I really hope the agency can regain that focus.”

Forte, who was hired in December, said in previous interviews that he hopes to take the agency through what he called a benchmarking process to set goals and make sure everyone is working toward those same goals.

The alliance underwent an audit by the HUD Office of the Inspector General in 2004, when the agency was still named the Little Rock Housing Authority. The report from that audit listed several problems with agency contracts, including improperly awarding contracts without competitive bids because work was classified as an emergency when investigators said the contracts were actually for poorly planned routine maintenance needs.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/09/2013

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