City workers in Philadelphia are ringing up an $11 Million dollar phone bill a year and city officials have no clue who they are calling, NBC 10 Investigator Harry Hairston discovered.
Translation: Your tax dollars could be paying for A LOT of time being spent chatting it up by City workers who could be calling whoever they want, business related or not, and their bosses would never even know.
An internal memo showing that, due to technical difficulties, the city has “not been able to produce the monthly telecommunications billing since June 2007,” was obtained by the NBC 10 Investigators.
The problems really started when the City changed the office that took care of all the billing, sources say.
There used to be an itemized breakdown of all the phone calls employees were making, according to Councilman Frank Rizzo, but those itemized bills haven’t been seen in over a year and a half, Department heads said.
Other City departments like water, police and sanitation aren’t getting itemized phone bills either.
And, the City is still paying for the parking authority’s phone bills even though they are now a state agency.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
There’s money put aside for when the City sends over the bill, a spokesperson from the parking authority stated.
The City has discovered the problem and they're working to fix it, a representative from the Mayor’s office said. Also, the City plans to collect money from places like the parking authority.
