SAN ANTONIO – Email records obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders confirm that the recently hired operations coordinator for the Housing Authority of Bexar County tried to arrange a large raise for herself, 10 weeks after starting her position.
The employee, Amy Hopper, resigned in October, hours after the Defenders requested emails related to the pay increase.
Hopper started at HABC in mid-May after leaving her post as the executive director of the Ballinger Housing Authority, located outside San Angelo.
A July 31 email shows Hopper telling an HABC accounting assistant that her pay was supposed to increase from $45,500 to $50,000.
The 9.9 percent pay increase would have taken effect while Hopper was still in her 90-day probationary period and it would have gone against HABC policy, which states that salary increases cannot be greater than 5 percent.
"The checks and balances worked, in that if there was a request that was perhaps outside the bounds of policy, it was caught and it was prevented," said attorney Mark Anthony Sanchez, who represents the housing authority.
Sanchez said despite Hopper's email, the raise did not appear on a board agenda for possible approval.
The Defenders were unable to reach Hopper for comment for this story.
HABC executive director James Hargrove also resigned this fall, shortly after the Defenders began looking into the day-to-day operations of the troubled agency.
However, county sources said that Hargrove's exit had been in the works for months.
Sanchez and HABC chairman Kirk Francis declined to speak about specific details of Hargrove's departure in late November, since his separation from HABC had not yet been finalized.
Personnel records show that in February, Hargrove gave an HABC housing specialist an oral reprimand, written reprimand and moved to terminate her on the same day.
The violations ranged from taking unauthorized time off to failing to collect money for property damages from residents living at southwest Bexar County apartments operated by HABC.
One of the violations, failing to tell residents they needed to clean-up their property, was three months old by the time the employee was written up for it.
Also, the woman received a satisfactory performance review a month after the supposed violation.
The review makes no mention of the property clean-up violation.
Financial records handed over by HABC following an open records request from the Defenders show that at least six times Hargrove gave written approval for credit card transactions over $500 after the purchases were made, even though the approval form itself states that "transactions over $500 require advanced approval by the Executive Director."
After HABC purchased computer software in late December 2016, Hargrove's initials did not appear on the approval form until May 24.
"I can't tell you why there was a delay, but I think looking at the big picture, the purchases were made within the parameters of existing purchasing policy," said Sanchez.
The Defenders for weeks attempted to contact Hargrove for this story, but the phone number listed for him in a background check was no longer in service.
The Defenders also sent emails and left voicemails for people listed as his relatives and associates, but did not hear back.
Tammye Trevino, a former U.S. Housing and Urban Development regional administrator, was named interim executive director following Hargrove's exit.
Trevino is HABC's fourth director in two years.
"We've gone through two efforts to try and bring in leadership here, and this is our second try," said Francis, who was appointed to HABC's Board of Commissioners in September 2015.
In June 2015, an investigation from the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that HABC had misused hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The scathing report led to an overhaul of the agency's board and the departure of its then-executive director.
"They've gone through some real troubles, at least over the past couple of years," said Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff.
Wolff said that commissioners court in the past has talked about taking over HABC or merging it with the larger San Antonio Housing Authority.
Wolff conceded that neither scenario would be ideal.
Francis said he is optimistic that Trevino is the right person to turn things around for the housing authority, which helps provide affordable living for low income residents in Bexar County and manages a number of properties.
"She can communicate with the board and both sides, and be a mediator and her leadership is what I call very structured, very straightforward," said Francis.