Bee Exclusive: Audit details library conflict

The Sacramento Public Library's security chief had financial interests in two companies that overbilled the library system about $650,000 on maintenance work, charging taxpayers up to $195 an hour for handyman tasks, according to an investigation commissioned by library officials.

The security director, James Mayle, circumvented library procedures and submitted maintenance work orders himself, knowing they would be administered by a company set up by his wife and for which he served as vice president, according to the report by a San Francisco law firm.

One contractor replaced ceiling tiles in the Colonial Heights library and sent an invoice for $3,240 to Hagginwood Services, the company run by Mayle's wife. Hagginwood turned around and billed the library $10,480 for the same job -- inflating the price to $195 an hour, according to the report.

The library called for the probe after The Bee submitted a public records act request in May to inspect the company's records.

On Monday, library officials said they would take the report to police and the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office this week.

"This is not an OK way to operate," said library director Anne Marie Gold. "This is not the way the library operates."

Library maintenance director Dennis Nilsson resigned in the midst of the investigation after refusing to produce documents requested by investigators, Gold said.

Nilsson previously told The Bee that he was not going to be the "fall guy" in an investigation into the maintenance firm. He did not return calls for this report.

Mayle, the security director, is still employed by the library, Gold said. He has a pending worker's compensation claim related to pain sustained after falling off his chair, his December 2005 claim shows.

He did not return calls Monday to his home or the Hagginwood office number.

Mayle confirmed to investigators that he was vice president of Hagginwood. His wife, Janie Rankins-Mayle, also owned Hagginwood's predecessor company, All City Maintenance, the report states.

Together, the two firms performed $1.3 million worth of work for the library starting in February 2004 and ending this summer, with the vast majority approved on a no-bid, no-contract basis, a Bee analysis of public records found.

The library investigation found that Nilsson, the library maintenance director, called Mayle's wife to suggest she create a company to provide maintenance work, according to the report by investigators for the Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai law firm.

Rankins-Mayle, the former head of security for the Port of West Sacramento, got a business license but never got a contractor's license, state documents show.

Once her business was established, Nilsson directed licensed contractors already working for the library to send their bills to Hagginwood instead of to the library, which had been the practice.

Rankins-Mayle "took no role in supervising or inspecting the work," the report says. Her company simply collected invoices and transposed some of the information to their own letterhead with a markup as high as 324 percent above the actual cost of the work.

"The only identifiable effect resulting from the insertion of (Hagginwood) into the maintenance repair system at the library as a general contractor was to ... create a stream of revenue for Rankins-Mayle, and by extension, her husband," the report says.

Investigators found that Rankins-Mayle had shredded the invoices contractors sent Hagginwood for their work at the library. The report labels the shredding "highly suspicious."

Hagginwood's 2006 contract required it to retain such records for three years. But Rankins--Mayle told investigators, "I didn't think I needed them," according to the report.

Subcontractors provided investigators with some data to analyze the Hagginwood markups, including the $195-an-hour ceiling tile installation.

One contractor billed the library $360 for assembling shelves at the Central Library. For the same job, Hagginwood charged the library $690 -- about $115 an hour.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Christina Jewett can be reached at (916) 321-1201 or cjewett@sacbee.com.