Group paid $750/hour with taxpayer money racks up more expenses

CLEVELAND (WJW) – The FOX 8 I-Team has uncovered new questions about a group paid with your money up to $750 an hour.

Big bills keep coming in to oversee reform in the Cleveland Police Department.

Now, we’ve found a growing demand to see results. More people are asking, ‘when will this end?’

Records show your tax money paid someone $2,400 to write a letter.

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Taxpayers, at times, get billed for expensive hotel rooms. Plus, high-priced dinners and hotel snacks. All of that is a snapshot of recent expenses turned in by a group earning up to $750 an hour.

A federal monitoring team oversees Cleveland Police Department reform with the oversight pushing a decade.

Some members of the team earn $250 an hour. Others earn $750.

Patience has started growing thin from city hall to the Cleveland streets.

Darrell Houston spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He now owns a business, a car wash on the southeast side.

“I’m a business owner. I’m a taxpayer and I’m a registered voter in my community. And, all I ask for is results,” he said. “I’m concerned about the taxpayer dollars being wasted on that when we have other things going on in the community.”

“We are dissecting and looking at every single expenditure to make sure taxpayers are protected,” said City of Cleveland Law Director Mark Griffin.

Griffin and his staff are challenging many bills from the Cleveland Police Monitoring Team.

For example, one bill shows a member of the group flew into Cleveland from Washington, then flew out to wine country in Michigan. City tax dollars pay the bills.

“But, the bigger picture here is to try to prevent some of these costs to make sure there aren’t unnecessary people attending meetings and not talking,” said Griffin. “We want to make sure that it’s not overstaffed. We want to make sure that it’s not overspent.”

Ultimately, a federal judge gets the final word deciding what bills get paid by the city. The same judge also holds hearings about what’s being done to improve Cleveland police policies and procedures, and what’s being done to fix problems.

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Many officers and people in city hall argue the federal monitors don’t give Cleveland police enough credit for making changes.

So, many folks wonder how long the oversight will go on with bills piling up.

We’ve been told before that the lead monitor cannot comment without approval from the court.

But, he is expected to answer questions next Wednesday before a Cleveland City Council committee.

A final word, here, from Darrell.

“We’re looking for results. OK? So, it doesn’t matter who we get to come sit at the table and review everything, we’re just looking for results,” he said.

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