Deep in the Ticket Tangle

He also appears to have interpreted the contract the way he wanted. For instance, Miller says he made a "management decision" to allow his department to carry out the mail-payment processing duties for Municipal Collections. The contract, according to Miller, permitted either the city or the contractor to process mail payments, and the Legal Department backs him up on that. However, the contract language could hardly be more explicit: "The Contractor will receive and process mail payments ...."

Greanias says such deviations from the original contract have allowed Municipal Collections to increase its income at taxpayers' expense.

"I don't see anything in management's responses that says, 'You're wrong,'" the controller says of Miller's and the Legal Department's responses to his office's audit. "They've got a lot of reasons for why it's no big deal. We don't agree with that. We think it is a big deal when a contractor makes one set of promises and we agree to pay them a certain amount based on those promises and subsequently the contractor says ... 'I'm going to do it differently.'"

But don't expect the Lanier administration to share Greanias' outrage. Lanier stubbornly rejected Greanias' opinion that Bayou City was being illegally paid. And though the mayor finally pulled the company off the ticket collection contract, he's made no effort to get the city reimbursed the nearly half-million dollars Greanias says it's owed.

If he wants money back from Municipal Collections, Greanias can do what he did with Bayou City and begin withholding the city's payments to the firm. But word has already come down from the Legal Department that such a move would be legally unwise.

"Administratively, he could do it," says Susan Taylor, an assistant city attorney." We think he should not. We feel like we'd be at risk of a lawsuit."

Interestingly enough, Greanias' audit may prove damaging in another lawsuit pending against the city.

In April, West Capital Financial Services, which had a separate contract to collect "old warrant" cases more than 210 days delinquent, sued the city for $2.5 million. The reason? The company claims Larry Miller gave Municipal Collections preferential treatment.

West Capital officials say that, in light of Greanias' audit, they expect to increase the damages they will seek from the city.