Audit Criticizes Quimby Program

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The city Department of Recreation and Parks has overcharged developers nearly $5 million in park fees since 2004, due to an accounting error by city planners, according to a newly released report. Additionally, the department could be collecting up to $250,000 in further overcharges each month, the Downtown News reports.


The blunder is one of several described in an audit released Thursday, Feb. 21, by City Controller Laura Chick. Launched in October, the audit examined the Recreation and Parks department’s collections and expenditures since 2002 of the assessments known as Quimby fees, charged to residential developers citywide and used to fund park projects.


The report also blasted the department for poor planning and clunky record keeping. It said the department should have taken action three years ago when Quimby collections began to increase.


As of January 2008, Recreation and Parks had accumulated approximately $130 million in Quimby fees, according to the audit, including an estimated $15 million Downtown (encompassing Council District Nine and parts of the First and 14th districts).


“We have millions of dollars that developers have readily agreed to pay that are sitting, collecting dust. It’s shocking; it’s dismaying; it’s depressing and it’s wrong,” said Chick.


Read the full Downtown News story

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