Audit Questions Graffiti Payments

The Los Angeles controller alleged Monday that the city overpaid for graffiti removal by New Directions for Youth Inc., but another top city official said the expenditures were justified.

City Controller Laura Chick raised questions about the city’s anti-graffiti efforts at a time when the program is flush with money. The City Council recently increased spending to contractors from $4.3 million to $7.8 million to counter the blight.

New Directions for Youth Inc. is one of 17 nonprofit agencies that share contracts administered by the city agency Operation Clean Sweep. New Directions serves much of the San Fernando Valley.

The audit found that New Directions was paid $459,333 in 1999 for graffiti removal, which auditors said was at least $54,525 “in excess of allocable expenses.”

The controller concluded that New Directions used an additional $15,000 to buy two vans without the written approval of Operation Clean Sweep.

The audit recommends reimbursement and a review of billings for the last two years.

But Delphia Jones, director of Operation Clean Sweep, and Ed Viramontes, executive director of New Directions for Youth, said the group justified all of its billings and obtained verbal approval from the city to buy the vans.

“There is just a difference of opinion,” Viramontes said. “We are going to fulfill the wishes of the city controller.”

In a letter to Chick, Jones said the compensation paid to New Directions should stand.

“We are going to be meeting very shortly to talk about the audit,” Jones said Monday

Chick said she stands by her recommendation that the city seek reimbursement.

Chick’s office concluded that New Directions for Youth hired an accountant who assigned an estimated cost to volunteer labor.

The audit said the approach “did not appear reasonable.”

Jones said in a letter that New Directions met the terms of its contract by exceeding the square footage and cleanup guidelines, so “the compensation authorized to them should be honored.”

Viramontes defended the billing in a letter to Chick.

“Since NDY was in full compliance with the goal of maintaining a graffiti-free environment in the assigned areas of the San Fernando Valley, no excess funds were received,” he wrote.

Jones said her agency has provided written confirmation that it gave verbal authorization to New Directions to buy the vans.