Forensic audit: Trenton recreation spending skipped bidding rules while city sought state aid

A DCA-ordered forensic review of Trenton’s recreation department — long kept from public view — documented no-bid park work with federal COVID relief funds, weak overtime substantiation, and undocumented credit-card reimbursements, according to public reporting on the audit.

TRENTON — A forensic audit of the City of Trenton’s Department of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture — ordered at the urging of the state Department of Community Affairs after reporting on irregular park contracting — found patterns of no-bid spending, poorly substantiated overtime, and undocumented employee reimbursements, according to detailed public accounts of the audit published in 2026.

Jersey Intel has obtained the city-posted forensic audit PDF from Trenton’s Document Center (DocumentCenter/View/11181/Forensic-Audit; local copy: sources/trenton-recreation-forensic-audit.pdf, 137-page scan titled City of Trenton — Procurement Forensic Investigation). Dollar figures below remain attributed to NJ Spotlight News and Jersey Vindicator accounts of the audit and to the city’s earlier Stacy Park statement, pending full OCR reconciliation of the scanned primary.

Findings as reported

According to NJ Spotlight News coverage of the audit (April–May 2026) and earlier Jersey Vindicator document-based reporting that prompted the audit:

• Trenton paid at least $3.2 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds for park upgrades without following state-mandated public bidding, including work described as a mile-long project at Stacy Park along the Delaware River that destabilized a flood zone and drew a halt order from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
• The city failed to substantiate much of $2.8 million in employee overtime, the audit coverage states.
• Staff were reimbursed for personal credit-card purchases of office supplies and other purported city expenses; about $50,000 of those reimbursements — described as one-fourth of the total — lacked documentation, according to the audit reporting.
• Purchase orders and invoices for some landscaping vendors were incomplete or vague; one company’s hourly rate was reported to have risen 50% to $90 per hour without clear approval documentation.

Earlier Jersey Vindicator reporting (2025), based on OPRA’d records, had already documented at least $1.7 million (later framed as part of the broader $3.2 million no-bid pattern) in recreation work paid in installments below the $44,000 threshold that triggers fair-and-open bidding — a practice known as contract splintering when used to evade bid rules.

City response (on record)

In a city newsflash on Stacy Park, Trenton said that after learning of irregular vendor payments to E&E Outdoor Maintenance Services it launched an internal review, advised DCA, sought council validation of services already performed, required department directors to complete procurement training, added the chief of staff as an approver for under-threshold purchases not being bid, and — at DCA’s urging — moved to hire a forensic accountant to examine the E&E matter and other potential purchasing irregularities.