Audit: Questionable spending on hoodies, other purchases in Lexington gun violence program
A city audit showed that One Lexington — the city’s youth violence intervention program — needs tighter controls on spending, including the use of city credit cards.
The audit, released Thursday, included personal charges on city credit cards, lack of documentation on how some money was spent and confusion about grant allocations.
In its response, city officials said many of the issues addressed in the audit have been corrected.
One Lexington is a gun violence reduction program using a multi-faceted approach that includes teen mentoring, crisis mediation, grants to community organizations and financial help to gunshot victims or their families. The program targets youth 13-29. It was ramped up in 2021 following a rapid increase in homicides and non-fatal shootings at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The internal audit, which is limited to whether programs follow city policies on spending and other rules, looked at One Lexington program spending from April 2022 to April 2024.
The program has changed and grown over the years. From January 1, 2021, to June 30, 2024, the program has received $1,191,050.56 in city and grant funding, according to city officials.
Gun violence program audit findings
The audit found:
- Incomplete documentation for multiple charges including more than $8,000 in hoodies and charges for a program that helps relocate families who have been affected by gun violence.
- More than $1,200 in personal charges on city credit cards for One Lexington Director Devine Carama
- Some organizations that received grants from One Lexington did not have a 501 (c)3 status, or IRS nonprofit status.
- Multiple charges on the same day on city credit card purchases that exceeded the city policy of a maximum of $2,500 per day per vendor or company.
Problems have been addressed, city says
The audit found Carama made 14 personal charges in May 2024 totaling $1,298.
In his response to the audit’s findings, Carama said he immediately realized he had accidentally used the wrong credit card during a May trip, notified the city and paid back the money before the purchases were processed and paid by the city.
The audit also found One Lexington did not have adequate documentation for multiple charges. The audit said One Lexington was eventually able to find documentation for 36 out of 44 purchases under $1,000 that did not have appropriate back up paperwork. That documentation was supposed to show how those purchases supported One Lexington’s services, auditors said.
“Hoodie purchases were missing details linking the items to a specific event or distribution to the intended recipients. Gift card, utility, and hotel payments were missing supporting documentation to confirm that the recipients were victims of gun violence or family members of victims, as per One Lexington program’s criteria,” according to the audit.
Auditors also asked for missing documentation of 16 credit card transactions that were more than $1,000. That documentation was eventually provided to the city’s auditors, the audit said.
In his response to the audit’s findings, Carama said when the program started in 2021, it had only two staff people to launch and support new programs. It now has three people, including Carama. In 2024, it developed a better way to tally expenses so documentation of the how the program spends city money can be better tracked, he wrote.
$8,400 in hoodies, T-shirts
The program also circumvented city rules by spending $3,420 with the same vendor — unnamed in the audit — for hoodies for an “It Takes A Village” event. It Takes a Village is a mentoring program targeting at-risk teens.
The city’s policy is a maximum of $2,500 per day per vendor or company for a credit card purchase. The program split the cost over two charges of $1,710 each in October 2022.
It did the same thing a month later. It logged three different purchases of $1,665 each or a total $4,995 for hoodies for a November 2022 It Takes a Village mentoring event.
In total, the program spent $8,415 on hoodies over two months.
In his response, Carama said the program thought it was following city rules by splitting up the purchases. It now understands city policies regarding credit card purchases and maximum amounts allowed.
“We used the purchase of hoodies and t-shirts as program completion rewards for the participants in our ‘It Takes a Village’ Mentoring Program which focuses on students directly affected by gun violence,” Carama said.
One Lexington awards grants to smaller community organizations working to address community violence. The grant proposals are scored by the Community Action Council. The agreement between One Lexington and Community Action Council says organizations that receive those grants must have non-profit status.
In 2023, One Lexington awarded over $91,000 to 12 organizations.
In practice, some of the grant organizations do not have have nonprofit IRS status but have received those grants through another entity that has 501 C(3) status, commonly called a fiscal agent.
Carama said the city has since amended the agreement with the Community Action Council to allow for groups to receive city money through a fiscal agent.
The intent is to award those grants to groups that are doing work in the community. Some don’t have non-profit status, Carama said in the audit’s response.
Gun violence down in Lexington
The audit also pointed out that there has been a significant decrease over the past four years in gun violence and homicides in Lexington. In 2021 and 2022, there were 36 homicides, a high. In 2023 and 2024, that number decreased to 22, according to Lexington Police Department statistics. In 2024, there were 19 gun-related homicides.
The number of non-fatal shootings has also declined. In 2021, there were 135. In 2024, there were 65, police data shows.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 12:47 PM.
