The East Baton Rouge Parish agency that doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in federal housing funding during the COVID pandemic allowed too much to be spent on fees to developers, spent money before contracts were in place and made duplicate payments for the same invoices, an internal audit found.
Federal law enforcement is investigating the office’s activity under former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, multiple sources said.
The audit, done last year under Broome’s administration, highlights a project to build three small homes. The cost ballooned from $220,000 to almost $500,000 — and the developer collected more than quadruple the amount of personal fees he was originally allowed, the audit notes…