Black ad agencies say they have been unfairly targeted in IDOT audits

By Demetrius Patterson
Chicago Defender
(April 3, 2006) As president and owner of one of Chicago’s leading African American advertising and marketing agencies, Tracey Alston (left) understands clearly how a wrong perception can impact a business.
She is normally hired by companies to do crisis intervention when negative stories have a negative impact on the company.

Now, after an audit by Auditor General William Holland led to major stories in Chicago’s two mainstream newspapers, Alston – and two other Black advertising and marketing firms questioned – find themselves in a position of defending the integrity of their businesses because of their work for a client, the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Through mainstream media reports last week, Holland questioned the effectiveness of using African American-owned and female–owned ad agencies to get the word out to the general public about IDOT’s two-year, $600 million Dan Ryan Expressway reconstruction project.

In addition, the Auditor General Office questioned about $479,400 in billings and expenditures that Alston’s firm, Danielle Ashley, E. Morris Communications Inc. (EMC), and MazJac Enterprises spent in making the public aware of the reconstruction project. Of that, about $390,000 in billings and expenditures by Danielle Ashley was questioned by Holland’s office.

Alston takes exception to Holland’s comments and implications in his audit.

“Prior to me, the firm that held this position was a white firm, and their predecessors were white,” Alston told the Defender Friday at her office on East Wacker Drive. “So, this was the first time in 30 years that it was an open process. I credit that to the governor’s administration.

“Audits are conducted all the time. Businesses are required to provide audit statements to its clients. We have been in business for 12 years and we have had to respond over the course of years to audits for the businesses that we serve. Our clients range from corporate to non-profits. And so, that’s not uncustomary. It is customary to ask for audits.

“However, where it becomes a problem is that now you’re looked upon from an audit that was provided, it’s looked upon as nothing, and it’s really has been totally dismissed in the eyes of the Auditor General Office.”

Alston said the state’s Auditor General Office received a copy of an independent audit that IDOT had done on her company, but she said Holland ignored the findings. She also said that IDOT’s independent audit was one of two done on her business since she received the contract for the Dan Ryan project in 2003. Her firm did the second audit.

Calls to Holland’s office were not returned by Defender press time Sunday.

Clayton Harris III, chief of staff for IDOT, said Danielle Ashley’s total contract budget is $2.4 million. He said as of January, the company has only received $1.3 million in billings.

EMC received $3 million for its job of getting information to the media on the Dan Ryan project. So far, the company has only billed $1.5 million in expenditures.

And MazJac Enterprises received a contract worth $1 million, but has only billed about $417,000.

Eugene Morris, founder and CEO of E. Morris Communications, said in a prepared statement that, “EMC has never been accused of any type of malfeasance on any type of contract over all of the 18 years we have been in business.

“We highly resent implications to the contrary that have been reported in the media. We view our work with IDOT (or any other governmental entity) as a public trust. As taxpayers ourselves, we are just as concerned about wasteful spending as anyone else. We were awarded this contract based on our proven skills and abilities and have performed our duties in a manner that is consistent with our reputation for quality, integrity and transparency.”

Holland’s audit questioned why Danielle Ashley’s firm spent contract dollars at such predominately Black events as the Chicago Defender’s Bud Billiken Day Parade, Today’s Black Women Expo and the Neo-Soul Explosion.

“Those events are generating large numbers of African American people that I can talk to, and that I can put into their hands information about this project,” Alston said. “That is what we do. Our job at Danielle Ashley is to provide the highest quality of service of communication that we can provide for our clients. In fact, our slogan is that ‘we marry the community to the client.’”

Many of the businesses that will be adversely affected by the Dan Ryan project’s alternative routes along Ashland Avenue and Stony Island Avenue are African American businesses, Alston said.

She said it was important to make sure those businesses understood and partnered in with IDOT’s plans for alternative routes.

“And what has been the claim by African Americans forever is that you can’t market to us the same way that you can market to white people,” Alston said. “You can’t market to us the same way you would mark to Hispanic people. There are cultural differences. And those cultural nuances dictate how you will reach out to a community. Even in a commercial. You just can’t put a Black face in a commercial to get a message across.”

Alston said the process that IDOT has in place for documenting expenses and reimbursements is a sound and fair one.

“I can’t just go in and say I’m going to put IDOT into the Bud Billiken Day Parade without supporting documentation, as the article alleged; I can’t do that,” Alston said. “Our job is to communicate with officials, businesses and the community about the upcoming construction project, and related events thereof. We have to provide updates on how we are doing that job.”

Alston said critics failed to realize that her main job on the Dan Ryan Reconstruction Project is to let as many people as possible know about how their lives will be turned upside down with the two-year construction timetable on the project.

“How do I do that? I do that in various ways,” Alston said. “But one of the ways I do that is I communicate with constituents by events. So, Bud Billiken Day is a 1.5 million-attendance event. That is a key event that I should be at, and I was there. It was pre-approved, and then it was documented. The dollars matched the invoices that were all given, and the signoffs were all given. There was documentation and Tim Martin acknowledged that there was documentation for all of the activities that we conducted.”

Alston said the discrepancy between Holland’s audit amounted to $390,000. Her own? About $7,000.

“And that was from the period of November 1, 2003 through August of 2005. During that time, Danielle Ashley’s budget had been about $1.6 million,” she said.

In documents obtained by the Defender, a report from IDOT by an independent accounting firm states: “In our opinion, except for the $7,790.16, that Danielle Ashley owed IDOT as shown on Exhibit 1, Danielle Ashley complies, in all material respects, with the aforementioned requirements for the period from November 1, 2003 to August 31, 2005.”

The nearly $8,000 in discrepancies were “little mathematical mistakes” that needed to be corrected and small human errors, Alston said.

So why have the African American ad agencies come under fire? The majority of Black media reps the Defender spoke to won’t say it on the record, but many think Holland’s audit reeks of racism.

Historically, Black agencies have vied for sub-contracting opportunities. But now you have Black-owned agencies that are going after prime contracts that were previously the domain of white-owned agencies.

Such scrutiny placed on African American-own ad agencies is not a first.

In January 2005, the Illinois Department of Revenue initiated the hiring of an Oak Brook accounting firm to audit R.J. Dale Advertising and Public Relations. The firm, owned by Robert J. Dale, was the first Black advertising company to get control of the annual $19 million ad budget for the Illinois State Lottery.

In a barrage of stories in the Chicago Tribune, critics suggested that Dale had misappropriated nearly $5 million in taxpayers’ dollars. But audits revealed no wrongdoing and Dale was vindicated in June 2005.

The Defender spoke to Dale on Friday. He refused to comment on the controversy swirling around Danielle Ashley, EMC and MazJac, saying: “I don’t trust myself to make any comment on record for fear that it might get me audited.”

Last year, however, Dale told the Defender the auditing of his business was an effort to discredit his firm after he won the state lottery contract bid, beating out 12 other mostly white firms.

Alston said she believes that a disgruntled IDOT employee leaked information about her and the two other firms to the media.

In the end, Alston is sure that the same vindication Dale received will prove true for her and the two other firms in question. But the damage has already been done.

“And they want to say that there is no intent to hurt Black business,” Alston said. “Oh yes, there is a great intent. Because what you are doing is painting a picture of dishonest and incapable agencies. They even reference me as a new agency. We have been in business for 12 years.

“I am a law abiding, license carrying agency that employs 23 people. And we are doing business. And we are doing business in the state of Illinois. That means we are paying taxes. I have not ever seen this type of occurrence except with Bob Dale. And again, he came into a situation where he was the first.

“I think the message that is really clear that is coming out Auditor General Holland’s office is that if you are Black and are doing business with the state of Illinois, he wants to meet you,” Alston continued. “So, why don’t we just sit down have some coffee? Why do we have to put my business on the front pages of newspapers with misrepresented numbers and unfounded documentation, and then they say ‘Well, we weren’t directing it toward you?'

“They also tried to say that our scores were the lowest. Well, what are you trying to say, that a white firm needed to come in and do this job? No they couldn’t. And (IDOT) realized that they needed to have a Black firm. Specialty markets require specialty firms.”

Alston made it clear that her firm, and others, will be silent as they are attacked.

“What my contract has done is it has helped other businesses that weren’t even allowed to come to the table,” Alston said. “That’s what Black business is about. It gives other businesses a chance, businesses that have been excluded from the process for far too long. And what they are trying to do is make Black businesses extinct. And it’s not going happen. It’s a new day. The state has been giving these jobs to white businesses all along. But now, we (Black firms) are going to apply for them, and we are going to be qualified to get them. And we are not going to continue to be under this type of scrutiny.”


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