AUGUSTA, Ga. () – The finances of the Housing and Development Department will be under the microscope, a process auditors say could take up to six months.

“We got to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar and we’re going to follow the process to make sure there’s no wrongdoing,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Wayne Guilfoyle.

The audit will look at nine different grant programs in the department, to review compliance.

Last month, Director Hawthorne Welcher was placed on paid leave and the city paid the federal government $6 and a half million dollars for compliance issue violations on rental assistance grants.

Some commissioners want this deep dive to be a forensic audit to look for evidence of financial crimes.

“As far as I see it, we ought to have been doing a forensic audit and I oughta have had colleagues that should support this, if they haven’t in the past, they ought to now,” said Commissioner Catherine Smith Rice.

“No, it’s not a forensic audit. It’s an audit to see to see if the money was used in the right areas,” said Guilfoyle.

Some commissioners say the audit of Housing and Development should be just the beginning.

“I think we need to take a deep dive into our government as a whole. There’s a lot of unanswered questions where a lot of matters are concerned but this audit will help us get to a better place,” said Commissioner Jordan Johnson.

“And we’ll continue to go through each department to do audits out constituents are consistently asking that we are transparent,” said Commissioner Stacy Pulliam.
The Housing Department audit was approved after what became a $6 million dollar mistake with federal grant money, but it now might be the springboard more scrutiny of city spending.