Pittsburgh to pay charge linked to contractor scandal amid probe of city credit card use

Two weeks ago, Pittsburgh City Council balked on paying a $1,200 credit card charge linked to a contractor scandal.

On Wednesday, council members changed their minds and voted 7-1 to approve the payment even as an investigation continues into the circumstances surrounding the controversial charge.

Council initially halted the payment to Bank of America after learning that the money was part of nearly $23,000 in questionable fees paid over the past year to Mario Ashkar, a former city contractor working for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The money was sent to Ashkar through his PayPal account and charged to one of the city’s Bank of America credit cards.

Who charged the payments, who authorized them and whether they were made appropriately are topics under scrutiny both by the city and Pittsburgh Controller Rachael Heisler.

Heisler on Wednesday urged council to pay the $1,200 the city owes the bank.

She credited council for pausing the payment until officials could investigate whether the charge would be considered fraudulent by Bank of America.

Under the bank’s guidelines, Heisler wrote in an email, the charge is not considered fraudulent. The bank would consider it a fraudulent charge — which the city would be able to fight — only if it were made without the cardholder’s authorization or if the amount charged was inaccurate, according to a Bank of America memo attached to Heisler’s message. Neither appeared to be the case.

Heisler urged officials to “approve the p-card transaction to remedy our current outstanding obligation to Bank of America,” but said there are still “serious unanswered questions about the payments.”

Whatever council decided, it would be too late to prevent Ashkar from getting the money. The $1,200 had already been deposited in his PayPal account before council was alerted to any problem, leaving city officials with little choice but to pay the money owed to the bank.

Heisler earlier this month brought to light concerns about the city’s payments to Ashkar, who started working as a city contractor less than a year after he was fired from a job in the Office of Special Events.

She has not accused Ashkar of wrongdoing in the incident or placed blame on any particular individual, but has said the issue warrants further investigation.

The controller said the payments raised a red flag about whether the city could legally hire Ashkar to work as a contractor less than a year after he’d been a city employee. They payments also seemed to violate city policies governing the use of city credit cards, or p-cards, a problem Mayor Ed Gainey’s office has acknowledged led to discipline for some city employees.

Council’s vote came during its weekly review of p-card transactions.

Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Side, voted against the entire package of transactions. He has said he will vote against p-card payments until potential problems with the system have been addressed. Councilwoman Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, was absent.

Related:

• Pittsburgh controller probes $18K in payments to ex-city worker

• Gainey aide defends administration over controversial contractor payments

• Pittsburgh council refuses to OK controversial $1,200 payment to ex-city worker

The mayor’s office has declined to provide Heisler with information she has requested for her investigation. The controller on Wednesday reiterated her desire to receive additional documentation.

Officials in the mayor’s office and the Department of Parks and Recreation have refused to answer detailed questions about Ashkar, the nature of his work, who authorized his payments and what kind of discipline people involved may face.

Gainey’s office has said it is cooperating with a probe by Pittsburgh’s Office of Municipal Investigations, which responds to allegations of misconduct by city workers. The details of that investigation are unclear, but the office reports to Chief Administrative and Operating Officer Lisa Frank, a top official in Gainey’s office.

The Office of Municipal Investigations, according to Heisler, will make available a final report only at the request of council.

The controller’s office’s fiscal audit section has launched a separate, independent audit of the Department of Parks and Recreation’s use of p-cards for professional services, Heisler said.

City credit cards can be used for small expenses like conference registrations or food to cater events, but are not permitted to pay for professional services, according to city rules.

Heisler said the audit will look at payments from January 2023 until the beginning of this month and will take several months to complete.

“The goal of this audit is to support Parks’ provision of vibrant community services while developing recommendations to avoid potential misuse,” Heisler said in her email.

In the meantime, Heisler reiterated concerns first highlighted in a 2019 audit from then-Controller Michael Lamb that encouraged city officials to provide more thorough documentation of p-card purchases to ensure such issues do not happen again.

The payments to Ashkar came to light only after he was charged in connection with a string of ethnic intimidation incidents.

Some officials have questioned whether the problem would’ve been caught if Ashkar’s name hadn’t appeared in relation to that incident, raising concerns that other problematic p-card payments could be missed.