FERRIDAY, La. — The Ferriday Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners has placed director Charles Bell on a 30-day leave with pay, but one commissioner says HUD wanted Bell fired outright.

&uot;HUD had sent the word to us as commissioners that (the board) was supposed to terminate Mr. Bell,&uot; said commission member Sammy Davis Jr. &uot;We had two options: either the board terminate him or the HUD people would terminate the board.&uot;

He said officials with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in New Orleans, which oversees the Ferriday Authority, wanted Bell fired after becoming aware of the results of an internal audit of the authority.

Davis would not say who at HUD’s New Orleans office communicated its intentions to the commissioners or exactly how the communication took place.

Instead of firing him immediately, commissioners chose to give Bell 30 days &uot;to give him due process,&uot; Davis said.

&uot;Mr. Bell had not had an opportunity to speak his side (to HUD), so to be assured that everybody’s getting a fair shake, he had to have that,&uot; Davis said.

Attempts to reach Bell Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Bell’s leave came less than two weeks after the State Auditor’s Office released a report by the authority’s own auditor showing accounting discrepancies from the last three fiscal years. But State Auditor Dan Kyle alleged that the accountant, Mike Estes of Fort Worth, Texas, reviewed the authority’s records for three years rather than the usual one-year period only because he knew Kyle’s office was investigating the authority.

Estes’ report showed budget overruns, property purchases and loans not federally approved, and a lack of documentation of some expenses.

Workers with the State Auditor’s office have been reviewing records and conducting interviews since mid-August as part of an investigation of the authority. But it is not yet known when that work will be complete or when that audit will be released by the state.

In news reports published late last month, Bell said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had done its own audit of the authority and found no problems.

Davis said he believed Bell had sent a written response to the internal audit to HUD’s New Orleans office.

Bell said the commission members would meet again &uot;immediately&uot; after the HUD office reviews Bell’s response.

The authority operates 56 apartments at a complex on Louisiana 15 as well as a 12-unit development on Arkansas Avenue.

It is audited annually by HUD and had gotten perfect or near-perfect performance scores for the past several years.