- High Springs City Commission is investigating an unexpected $900,000 bill from Evoqua Water Technologies related to a wastewater project.
- City Manager Jeremy Marshall is reviewing old emails and documents to trace the city's full $2 million liability and prevent future surprise bills.
- The commission postponed renewing the solid waste contract to Jan. 8 to review bids from other providers and ensure competitive rates for citizens.
During a regular meeting on Thursday, the High Springs City Commission heard updates on the staff’s investigation into an unexpected $900,000 bill and held off on renewing its solid waste contract.
Before the unanimous vote to adopt an ordinance amending the 2024-25 fiscal year budget, Commissioner Tristan Grunder asked City Manager Jeremy Marshall if the city had taken the steps needed to prevent finding any more surprise bills.
Last month, the commission used emergency cash funds from the city’s infrastructure fees account to cover an $896,861.35 bill from Evoqua Water Technologies related to the city’s wastewater treatment facility project.
Although the purchase order was placed over two years prior to when the project started, it evaded staff, external auditors and the commission until September this year.
Marshall said he’d make a timeline and go through emails from former staff members, including former City Manager Ashley Stathatos, to understand how the bill went overlooked.
Marshall reported he’s still going through the emails to track down all payments of the city’s $2 million responsibility to the project. Once he’s done with that, he said he will go through the process of the purchase order to figure out what went wrong to prevent it from happening again.
“Before I can fix it, I want to make sure there’s nothing else out there, and I’m getting more and more confident by the day that we’re good,” Marshall said. “But until I have every penny of that $2 million accounted for, I’m still working.”
Finance Director Diane Wilson also said in addition to issues with the purchase order, the funding source was also a problem.
She said the former city manager told staff that any bills coming from the project were reimbursable and covered by funding, which wasn’t true.
Commissioner Katherine Weitz said she’d started making public records requests to go through former staff’s emails herself, and that it would take time because of the volume of them.
“I think trying to put together a clear picture is critical, absolutely critical,” she said. “But it’s going to take time to make sure we get the right answer, not any kind of version.”
Although the City Commission planned to make a final decision on renewing the city’s solid waste contract on Thursday, it voted 3-2 instead to punt the contract to its next meeting on Jan. 8 to allow all potential contractors to get their bids before the city.
High Springs has been under contract with Waste Pro since 2023. Its current contract expires in April.
Multiple commissioners expressed they were pleased with Waste Pro’s service and ready to sign a new contract.
However, they also hadn’t received potential rates from GFL Environmental and Alachua County and wanted to wait to enter a new contract until they had.
Vice Mayor Wayne Bloodsworth Jr. said the city owed its citizens the due diligence of ensuring the cheapest solid waste rates possible after rates had already risen.
“I still think we owe it to our citizens to dig into this, and I’m disappointed that we don’t have this in place tonight,” he said.
Editor’s note: This story was underwritten by a grant from the Rural Reporting Initiative at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida. To learn more or get involved, click here.
It is profoundly concerning that a financially strained city would contemplate approving a major waste-collection contract without first obtaining and evaluating competing bids that could materially reduce costs to taxpayers. This concern is amplified by well-documented service deficiencies, Waste Pro including the continued use of outdated equipment that leaks hydraulic fluid throughout residential neighborhoods and city streets. Approving a contract under these circumstances without price comparison, without performance accountability, and without full transparency constitutes a failure of due diligence and fiduciary responsibility. At best, this reflects gross incompetence. At worst, it raises legitimate questions about whether improper influence or favoritism is at play. Either scenario is unacceptable and corrosive to public trust.
Let’s stop pretending this is a mystery. High Springs’ financial problems are the result of reckless decision-making, poor oversight, and a complete lack of transparency. Costly contracts were signed, proper procurement was ignored, and elected officials were left in the dark while city funds were drained. Those choices didn’t just strain the budget they weakened the city’s financial foundation. The outcome was inevitable. High Springs is now paying the price, and taxpayers deserve accountability, not revisionist history or excuses.
Doesn’t the City of High Springs have a formal bid process for things like solid waste collection?
A formal bid process typically includes a date certain for deadline to submit.
If GFL (or other waste haulers) didn’t submit their bid on time then oh well. If Waste Pro properly followed the bid process then it should be awarded the contract.
I think the point was they didn’t do an official bid process to begin with, and now they are trying to do that. Maybe a little late in the game. Seems like the commission is desperately trying to salvage a very mismanaged city government. I hope the best for them as High Springs is such a beautiful and unique community. But it looks like there’s more word to come before it gets better.
A $900K “surprise” bill?
The City of High Springs obviously needs better-qualified employees and managers.
The city of Alachua should’ve had an outside contract administration inspection company manage the process. The city of Tampa had one where I was a construction engineer and project manager for underground utility replacement. This type of organization resolves these type of issues before they happen.