A Pembroke Park town commissioner is under fire for spending thousands of dollars on holiday parties without following proper procedures.
The Broward County Inspector General’s Office says former mayor and current commissioner Jeffrey Jacobs violated the law.
“It’s really embarrassing. At times it makes you feel helpless,” said Eric Morissette, Pembroke Park’s deputy mayor. “You can’t just say you’re protecting taxpayer money and then forget to spend it when no one’s looking.”
The town’s 2022 holiday party took place on a luxury yacht that Jacobs contracted for $10,575, according to the OIG report.
“Purchases over $10,000 require prior approval from the Town Board,” the report states. “…only 24 guests attended the event, so charter fees were approximately $440.63 per person…”
The report said Jacobs’ explanation to investigators was not credible and that he told the OIG he had no idea who had used his credit card to make the $3,950 deposit.
The report included a photo of the mayor’s town credit card and said he recently turned it over to the town manager.
“There is no suggestion that Commissioner Jacobs used a single penny of city funds for his personal gain. He organized a holiday party solely for the benefit of the city and nothing else,” Commissioner Jacobs’ attorneys said in a statement.
Morissette said the OIG “let Jacobs get away with it.”
“So he’s not responsible for his actions,” he said.
The government has procedures for purchasing, but the OIG report said those procedures were far from being followed, and they blame the commissioners, who were then mayor, and the town’s former director of finance and budget for their involvement in the procedures.
