JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- City leaders said they will soon spend millions of taxpayer dollars because of what they call a costly employee mistake.The city recently learned about a $3 million contract for copiers at public libraries. They said someone made the deal for the copiers but that the deal was not supposed to be made.
A sign on one of the library copiers says the machine is temporarily out of service, but for the city it doesn't matter because it is going to be paying millions for the machines at the libraries whether they work or not.
Mayor John Peyton said he has to honor a city contract with the company who owns copiers. However, he said he never gave permission for the library to make the deal for copiers.
Now, the mayor has to ask the City Council to pay the company $3 million of taxpayer money to make up for the mistake.
"This is an instance where we had an employee in the library department who did not follow the procedures and as a result we have an invoice that has to be paid that we really were not aware of because the processes were not followed," Peyton said. "We are only as good as the people who implement the process -- that person has been separated from the city."
The mayor said Mike McDowell was the employee. McDowell was the chief financial officer for the library, but he has since resigned that position.
Even with McDowell gone, the copiers remain and the city has reached an agreement with the company to pay the multimillion dollar bill.
The copier contract issue seems to be a duplicate of past problems with city contract, one that has some Jacksonville taxpayers wondering if this is another case of the city stuck holding a bill it shouldn't have to pay.
"Well, the city is only as good the employees who represent the city. And there are instances when you have 8,000 employees where employees will go out and do things that are not in the procedures," Peyton explained.