Cash-strapped Capital Double Pays for Same Services - Shock
Jackson's information technology director told a City Council committee the city paid two telephone providers for identical service, an overpayment he put at roughly $1.3 million.
At the City Council Finance Committee meeting on August 12, 2026, Nathan Slater said the department discovered the duplicate billing while reviewing its accounts. "We were paying one provider $30,000 a month. We're paying a second provider $30,000 a month for the same service," Slater told the committee. He said the city has "put those entities on notice" but has not yet received any refunds, and the identities of the two providers were not detailed in the meeting record reviewed.
Slater's disclosure came as part of a broader briefing to the Finance Committee on departmental spending.
The overpayment is the kind of unexplained loss of public money that draws scrutiny regardless of whether the city ultimately recovers the funds. A council member has separately cautioned against counting any eventual recovery as "savings" until the money is actually back in city hands, a caution likely to shape how the matter is tracked going forward.