Tens Of Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars Missing From Philadelphia’s Largest Cash Account
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — City officials are searching for tens of millions of dollars of misplaced money as they’re trying to figure out what happened.
The City of Philadelphia isn’t sure where $33.3 million went from its largest cash account.
City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart called it “unacceptable.”
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“It could be the money was mistakenly deposited in the wrong city account,” she said. “It could be worse. It could be that a portion of it is actually missing or it could be theft.”
Rhynhart is demanding the city’s Finance and Treasury Department find the missing money.
“My job is to find and identify the financial problems of the city,” she said, adding that this is “something I’m not going to let up on.”
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Rhynhart says the previous controller noticed the issues with the account as far back as 2014. Now, the city has hired an outside accounting firm to pick up the slack and find the cash at the cost of $500,000.
“We need to reconcile our books. Reconcile is not missing. The notion the money is missing is not true and we’ll get to the bottom of it and correct it,” said Mayor Jim Kenney.
Councilman Allan Domb is also concerned, saying the Finance Department needs to quickly set up new protocols, including regular daily monitoring.
“The average person in business would be picking up the phone and calling their accountant saying I need you to come down here right now and fix this problem, immediately. The sense of urgency needs to be there,” said Domb.
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The city’s finance director would not comment, and instead directed questions to the mayor’s office. Kenney promised the search is on for the $33 million in taxpayer money.