DeKalb may have paid for work not done | www.myajc.com

Everyone who pays to flush a toilet in DeKalb County has chipped in on $5.8 million that the county OK’d spending on a troubled sewer project – though some of the work paid for has yet to be done.

Invoices obtained exclusively by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show that customers of the county’s water/sewer system – who are bankrolling a $1.35 billion system overhaul through increased rates – paid for oversight failures at every level of the $7.7 million excavating contract at the Snapfinger wastewater plant.

The engineer from a joint-venture firm hired to monitor the project as well as two high-level county workers, also both engineers, repeatedly signed off on the invoices without inspecting quality.

DeKalb is paying DeKalb Water Partners, the company overseeing management of all the overhaul projects, $15 million. Rudy Chen and Hari Karikaren, both assistant Watershed directors, earn about $114,000 and $119,000 annually. Among problems they missed:

• Monthly invoices that fail to mention problems now known, such as water quality violations and construction accidents.

via DeKalb may have paid for work not done | www.myajc.com.