Years before criminal charges came down, a compliance firm hired by the city-parish raised alarms that a taxpayer-funded Baton Rouge health and violence-prevention initiative was marred by conflicts of interest, duplicate payments, improperly used credit cards and no proof that the work was being done.
Leaders of the Safe, Hopeful, Healthy program and its companion Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative nonprofit — started under then-Mayor Sharon Weston Broome — repeatedly disregarded concerns raised from 2021 to 2024 by CSRS, the company said in internal memos obtained by The Advocate.
“In these cases, the concerns expressed by CSRS were ignored, and exceptions were frequently made by the Mayor’s Office, directing expedited payments to vendors,” company employees wrote in October 2023…