Concerns about a ‘cover-up.’ Inside the Columbus finance investigation
Editor’s note: This story is the second in a series recollecting how the Columbus Consolidated Government wound up in the midst of a comprehensive investigation into city finances, with several city officials investigated and two charged with criminal offenses. You can read Part 1 here.
A 118-page administrative report from the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office contains a new perspective on the events during the past few years that led to criminal charges and the city manager’s firing.
Questions about a backlog in business license applications, whistleblowers and the leak of then-city manager Isaiah Hugley’s personal business tax information set the stage for an investigation into the Columbus Consolidated Government’s finance department.
After investigators and prosecutors began their inquiries, pressure compounded on city officials when a second CCG department faced public backlash about its operations.
When Mayor Skip Henderson requested the sheriff’s office investigate the leak of Hugley’s information, Sheriff Greg Countryman warned him: If any indication of criminal activity emerges, those potential crimes would be investigated.
Investigators were advised to speak with the city’s internal auditor, Donna McGinnis, according to the report, and they began interviewing her Jan. 30, 2024.
Inside the investigation
During her interview with investigators, McGinnis described her concerns about the internal audit of the finance department being obstructed and the Dec. 6, 2023, meeting she had with Henderson and other city officials.
A day after speaking with McGinnis, investigators spoke with Whistleblower Number 2 (WB002). The whistleblower explained the office didn’t have enough staff to meet the growing needs of the community.
WB002 also described witnessing then-CCG revenue manager Yvonne Ivey taking documents out of the office, including checks, according to the report. This includes an instance after the audit began where WB002 confronted Ivey about a briefcase she was taking out of the office because WB002 never had seen Ivey carry it.
This was suspicious to WB002 because no employee was allowed to leave the office with work-related materials. WB001 corroborated this rule, the administrative report says.
Investigators spoke with WB001 in early February 2024. WB001 claimed they witnessed “bad and dishonest practices” within the office regarding Ivey and CCG finance director Angelica Alexander.
These practices included destroying documents, shredding live and stale-dated checks, ignoring or lying to citizens about their business license applications, physically assaulting employees and creating a “hostile work environment,” according to the transcript of WB001’s interview in the report.
On Feb. 7, 2024, investigators requested that the CCG Information Technology Department provide emails that reference local political activist Nathan Smith, who died May 21, 2025, because they had reason to believe an employee in the finance department could have been involved in gathering Hugley’s tax information and sending it to Smith, since they had access to it.
They found “nothing of evidentiary value” in the emails they received, the report says. But the next day, an investigator requested Ivey’s emails from May 2023 to February 2024, saying there was reason to believe there were administrative violations.
Investigators learned around Feb. 8, 2024, Ivey had been fired.
In the emails, investigators found an exchange among CCG deputy city manager Pam Hodge, Alexander and Ivey where Hodge indicates she wants “to be able to say” to the Columbus Council that 500 transactions had not been processed.
But in her reply to Hodge’s email, Ivey said a total of 960 transactions from 2019-2023 remained unprocessed. And an investigator wrote in the sheriff’s office report that Hodge’s email “raises concern of a cover-up and obstructing the audit when she clearly stated that she wants to be able to present a certain number of transactions that the lockbox should represent.”
Hodge told the council during a Dec. 12, 2023, meeting that 500 returns were pending.
Investigators also found evidence in those emails that whistleblowers attempted to show Hodge the problems in the revenue office by telling her about unprocessed and unbanked checks.
On Feb. 9, 2024, investigators obtained a warrant to search Ivey’s and Alexander’s offices at the City Services Center. Ivey’s CCG-issued laptop was seized, and checks, mail and other documents were taken into evidence.
Alexander was told no documents were to be removed from Ivey’s office, according to the administrative report, but whistleblowers said multiple checks were taken out of Ivey’s office. Alexander was observed on security cameras entering and leaving Ivey’s office with documents, the report says.
An interview with Ivey
In the administrative report, investigators detailed their Feb. 13, 2024, interview with Ivey.
When they arrived at her home around 9 a.m., they observed Ivey being “ostensibly distraught” and “weeping” at her front door and leading investigators to her dining room, the report says.
“Ivey’s speech was halted/staggered at first,” an investigator wrote in the report.
Seated in her living room, Ivey told investigators much of the strain in the office’s work environment was because they were so short-staffed.
She admitted there were stale-dated checks, unprocessed returns and an unsent delinquency list. Ivey said the delinquency letters should have been mailed, but she worried she would be seen as unsympathetic toward businesses.
“Ivey felt if she sent out delinquency letters, it would not be perceived as showing initiative,” investigators wrote in their report. “However, because she did not send the letters, she was seen as incompetent for not performing her duties to obtain the funds.”
The CCG revenue office was about a year and several months behind on daily duties, Ivey told investigators, and the COVID-19 pandemic was a problem because employees had to take a mandatory leave of 14 days.
Ivey denied making the spreadsheet with Hugley’s tax information, but she told investigators whoever did it had to be familiar with EnerGov, the software system used in the office. She said no report exported from EnerGov would focus on a single business, and someone would have had to create such a report.
In the interview, Ivey also said she had a “tumultuous professional relationship” with WB001.
When asked about whistleblowers’ claims that she put her “hands on people,” Ivey described an incident with one of the employees.
She said she told the employee to come to the file room after an incident because Ivey did not want to discipline this employee in front of others.
Ivey said she grabbed the employee by the arm and attempted to pull them into the file room, but the employee pushed her away. Ivey was offended that the employee would accuse her of “abusing” them, the report says.
The former revenue manager said she felt the office was a hostile work environment, but her complaints to McGinnis were dismissed. Ivey felt that the internal auditor did not fully understand the office’s process with the lockbox when she reported that there were $45 million in unprocessed checks.
“Lockbox” is a term Synovus used, Ivey explained, and the bank would send a lockbox summary, including the deposits.
“Ivey stated that if McGinnis had done her due diligence, this calamity could have been avoided in its entirety,” the report says.
Throughout the probe, investigators conducted interviews with over 25 people. They include Smith, the local political activist who recounted negative interactions he had with Hugley, described how he got the city manager’s tax information and refused to name his informant, other than saying the person was a high-profile female who doesn’t work in the finance department.
Investigators also interviewed Columbus Councilor Charmaine Crabb of District 5 on March 6, 2024. She described Hugley as “tyrannical and power-hungry” and made several statements Hugley’s lawyer and others would characterize as racist.
Prosecutor recuses himself
By the summer of 2024, more details about the investigation became public as Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Don Kelly asked for his office to be recused from the finance investigation.
In a July 18, 2024, letter to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, Kelly said there was an investigation of possible criminal acts made by CCG employees, including the finance director, human resources director and a deputy city manager.
“I do not feel comfortable handling this case because these three individuals make decisions about employment and budget issues for my office,” Kelly wrote in the letter.
Although Kelly didn’t identify which of the city’s two deputy city managers he referenced, the letter implied that Alexander and CCG human resources director Reather Hollowell were involved.
In the wake of this recusal being made public, Hollowell began getting representation from attorney Chuck Boring. He released a statement on her behalf Aug. 21, 2024.
“Obviously, someone or some entity with an axe to grind leaked this memo or tipped off the media that it had been transmitted even though no charges or specific conduct has been sufficient to bring any criminal charge against anyone at this point,” Boring wrote.
He argued the situation already had sullied her name and that it couldn’t be remedied, even after her name was cleared and she faced on criminal charges.
Kelly’s recusal was honored, and the case was assigned to Towaliga Circuit District Attorney Jonathan Adams.
Another CCG operation is under fire
As investigators carried on their work after Kelly recused himself, CCG was embroiled in more scandal after the Columbus Animal Allies began posting videos of poor conditions in the Columbus Animal Care & Control Center.
One graphic video depicted the euthanizing of a dog named Chai, who was stuck with a needle and was left alone while dying with the needle in its chest. Someone removed the needle, and Chai was put in a cart with other dead dogs.
Outrage erupted. Residents expressed their anger at a July 24 Columbus Council meeting. During the meeting, the council passed a motion for an external investigation of CACC.
The investigation led to the arrests of eight CACC workers on 34 criminal charges. Hugley announced a plan to privatize CACC on Oct. 1, 2024. He said Paws Humane Society would take over management of the facility.
Cases related to the CACC investigation are pending.
This scandal compounded the criticism Hugley received about city operations.
Follow-up audit and more outsourcing
Acuitas, the Atlanta-based forensic accounting firm hired to audit the CCG finance department, returned to the Columbus Council on Nov. 19, 2024, having completed a follow-up audit of the department.
They reported most of the backlogged business and alcohol license renewal applications were now processed and the office was more organized.
However, utilizing automation, increasing staffing and determining how much revenue likely would be collected still was a concern. These concerns led councilors to consider outsourcing the occupational tax department.
“I don’t have confidence that (CCG) can handle the finance department and the incoming business licenses to a point where we can get ahead and become a functioning government and be a place where businesses want to come in and do business in Columbus, Georgia,” Councilor Joanne Cogle of District 7 said during the meeting.
The city manager agreed that his office would create a request for proposals to look into outsourcing these operations.
Implementing more automation was another recommendation Acuitas had given the city. However, this process faced more delays in December, when the council tabled an ordinance that would have allowed businesses to pay their taxes online but would have removed an option for quarterly payments.
Councilors worried that removing the quarterly payment option could cause a financial hardship for some businesses. The finance department was asked to look into other systems that might allow quarterly payments.
The beginning of the end?
In early 2025, more information became available about the finance investigation.
Adams, the Towaliga Circuit DA, told the Ledger-Enquirer on Feb. 12 that his office was investigating whether there was a “cover-up” or whether officials lied about checks not being deposited.
He confirmed the investigation was not about theft.
Earlier that week, Atlanta-based accounting firm Mauldin & Jenkins released its 2024 external financial and compliance audit of CCG, determining it is “clean.” This audit was routine and wasn’t directly related to the finance investigation.
A month later, a March 11 Columbus Council meeting had a major impact on the city when Councilor Judy Thomas of citywide District 9 resigned because of her health, and councilors appointed John Anker, an outspoken critic of Hugley, to fill her seat during the same meeting.
Thomas died a month later.
This story was originally published July 21, 2025 at 9:09 AM.
