Authored By chloe.morrison

The city’s Youth and Family Development Administrator, Lurone Jennings, is being suspended after misusing almost $28,000 in private funds, including giving $18,500 to his daughter’s nonprofit.

The monies disbursed were from the YFD Opportunity Fund, which was created in May 2014 through an agreement between the city of Chattanooga and the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga.

In June 2014, City Council members voted to allow Jennings-the YFD administrator-to apply for grants and accept donations through the YFD Opportunity Fund.

The approved resolution required that the funds be used for temporary jobs, work scholarships and other educational services.

This week, City Auditor Stan Sewell sent a memo to Mayor Andy Berke, City Council members and City Attorney Wade Hinton detailing his investigation.

According to the memo, only $1,500 of $27,500 of disbursements meet the purpose approved by City Council.

Jennings appears to have “unilaterally” initiated all the disbursements, $18,500 of which went to Journey Educational Services, where Jennings’ daughter is the executive director. Jennings is the senior adviser to Journey Educational Services, according to the memo.

Sewell labeled this as a conflict of interest in his memo.

Chief Operating Officer Maura Sullivan said that after officials reviewed the audit, they contacted human resources personnel, who recommended a course of action, including a one-week suspension, a formal letter of discipline, mandatory ethics training and a performance improvement plan for Jennings.

The final approval for all YFD contractual and financial obligations will now be made by the city’s finance department, Sullivan said in a prepared statement.

“The city of Chattanooga works diligently to ensure every city employee provides superior customer service, efficiently and effectively uses taxpayer dollars, and adheres to the highest standards of trust given to us by the people of our city,” she also said.

When interviewed by the city auditor’s office, Jennings said he was thinking about the children in need when he made the distributions to his daughter’s nonprofit and he realized after the fact that it was a problem.

Jennings also said he thought the decision would come back to haunt him and the fact that his daughter was the nonprofit’s director influenced his decision. He also acknowledged he was aware that it was a conflict of interest before giving the money, according to the memo.

“Mr. Jennings stated his daughter was at a crucial time and he had not been able to do things to help her in the past,” according to the memo. “He stated he wanted to help his daughter and he made the wrong call. He said this one time he gave in. Mr. Jennings stated, ‘I’m guilty and whatever the consequences, the challenges I have to face . I have to pay the piper too, as I have to be accountable, as I expect others to be.'”

Jennings’ actions also violate the city’s ethics policies, according to the memo.

Mayoral candidate and City Councilman Larry Grohn said that a one-week suspension is inexcusable, especially considering Jennings said he knew what he did was wrong.

“I think this is a direct reflection of the leadership of the current mayor,” he said.

Several other council members either didn’t return calls to Nooga.com or declined to comment, saying they needed to know more about the situation.

Also according to the memo: “There is an appearance Administrator Jennings made unauthorized distributions from The Bethlehem Center’s V-Fund so he could provide funds to his daughter’s nonprofit organization via the YFD Opportunity Fund.”

It’s unclear how Jennings was still authorized to make distributions involving The Bethlehem Center.

“The issues discussed in this memorandum are not the result of an audit performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards,” according to the memo. “Had we performed such an audit, additional issues might have been reported. The purpose of this letter is to provide information that may be useful to management.”

Sewell said an important part of the memo, which is below, is a review of disbursements from the YFD Opportunity Fund, including relevant comments by Jennings. He said it should be reviewed for proper context and understanding.