Former Director Bobby Rodriguez: “There was always oversight”
Tue, 2016-06-14 21:20
News Staff
San Juan EDC audit still incomplete
By G. Romero Wendorf
SAN JUAN – Several things to report out of San Juan, nicknamed The Friendly City: the city is now up to date with the severance payments it had agreed to pay former EDC Director Humberto “Bobby” Rodriguez, – six months’ salary (approximately $33,000) paid out over the same time period. Up until two weeks ago, the city still hadn’t paid Rodriguez for April and May. But according to his attorney, Gustavo “Gus” Acevedo, that default has been rectified.
Second, according to City Manager Benjamin Arjona, the city’s audit of the San Juan Economic Development Corporation is still underway. Will it turn out that the EDC budget is in the red to the tune of between $200,000 and $320,000, as originally reported last March, when the newly appointed EDC board unanimously voted to terminate Rodriguez’s contract. Or will the audit show that the original alleged budget deficit isn’t as bad as originally thought?
When the San Juan EDC story first broke last March, a paper handed out to the EDC board, which was generated by the city’s finance department, indicated that the SJ EDC spent approximately $15,000 more in 2012 than it took in from its half-cent sales tax revenue.