Collier County fires 2 leaders involved in housing rehab debacle

Marcy Krumbine

COLLIER COUNTY — Two Collier County employees were fired this week after an audit confirmed the county’s housing department signed off on payments to at least two contractors for incomplete work.

The contractors were working as part of a program rehabbing foreclosed homes.

Marcy Krumbine, the former director of Housing, Human and Veteran Services, was let go Wednesday, county spokesman John Torre said.

“That was subsequent to the release of the audits,” Torre said, which showed a “failing to properly manage” the department’s programs.

Krumbine resigned her post as director in August after the controversy came to light, but had been scheduled to continue to work in a different office until December. She was making $93,000 a year as the department director, but her salary was reduced to $67,000 annually after she was demoted.

Tammy Hammer, a housing rehabilitation specialist for the county, was fired on Friday.

Collier’s Housing, Human and Veteran Services Department came under fire in July after the Collier County Clerk of Court’s office reported incomplete pay request paperwork for construction on a renovated home in East Naples. The renovation work was funded with Disaster Recovery Initiative grant money.

An audit found that work invoiced and approved for funding had not been completed as billed. A second home renovated in Golden Gate under a different program was also found to have been improperly billed.

According to a subsequent Collier County Clerk of Court’s audit, one contractor, A. Martinez Construction, agreed that work billed to the county had not actually been completed on the home, but said a project manager gave the contractor the impression that it was acceptable to bill for the whole line item as long as the rest of the work was done by the time payment was issued.

Torre said he didn’t know the details of Hammer’s dismissal, but it was related to oversight and came at the recommendation of Kim Strong, the housing department’s interim replacement director.

Torre said it’s too soon tell if Hammer and Krumbine’s dismissals are the end of the matter for the county. The Collier Clerk of Court’s office is continuing to work on a full audit of the housing department’s program, which involves 70 homes.

“I really can’t pinpoint what other changes might happen,” Torre said.

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