The Trenton Times published the following article on October 30, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton may have to repay misused federal grant money

By Jenna Pizzi/The Times of Trenton 
on October 30, 2013 at 8:51 PM, updated October 30, 2013 at 8:52 PM

TRENTON — The city may be on the hook to pay back thousands of dollars to the federal government after federal grant money was misused to pay the salary of an employee.

Councilwoman Phyllis Holly-Ward confirmed that executive session discussions in the last week have centered around city employee Chikia Robinson, whose position was paid for with federal grant money though she may not have been doing work authorized by the funding agreement.

Robinson is listed as an employee of the Department of Housing and Economic Development’s planning division, which receives Community Development Block Grant funding. However, Robinson was instead working in the Department of Administration.

Holly-Ward said she could not discuss the details of the closed-door meetings, but said she hopes that business administrator Sam Hutchinson will move Robinson to work in her proper department. “I hope that she is back over in housing,” Holly-Ward said. “Anything else is just being defiant.”

Hutchinson, who served as an attorney for HUD in Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years before getting the city job last year, did not return several messages left with his office this week.

Robinson was hired on Oct. 10, 2012, as a keyboarding clerk in the division of planning, according to payroll documents obtained by The Times through an Open Public Records Request. According to budget documents, the position for which Robinson was hired pays a minimum salary of $26,995.

Council members held two emergency meetings on Friday and Monday to discuss employee positions paid for with CDBG funds provided to the city by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The money can only be used to pay for specifically designated projects and grant funding for local organizations that build housing, fight homelessness, provide job training, among other things.