In an interview, Neff said Foxworth's services were suspended last October -- along with the services of about five other consultants. Project Ocean has been a "difficult project," Neff said, adding that she has no reason to doubt Foxworth's ability to work on the project. Neff said she and Foxworth know each other through occasional meetings regarding Project Ocean.

"I didn't have any reason to doubt her ability for the work she was hired to do," Neff said in an interview. "I do not feel she didn't deliver, but whether she worked those hours, I can't say."

Neff said "there may have been three to four months" where she signed Foxworth's time sheets, although she could not be sure.

Neff said that in general, her department, the Mayor's Office of Information Services, helped institute a program 18 months ago to qualify vendors and consultants using pre-established requirements and guidelines. Prior to the new process, the process of verifying contractor timesheets "was not being tightly monitored ... but has been corrected and is being followed diligently today," Neff wrote in a July 26 response to Butkovitz regarding his concerns about Foxworth (download PDF from The Philadelphia Inquirer: http://inquirer.philly.com/pdfs/2006/controller_july262006.pdf).

"As far as I know, at the time Ms. Foxworth was hired, the city had no standard practice requiring background checks for consultants," Neff wrote.