PHA Employees Must Return Designer Bags

The Philadelphia Housing Authority is back in the news after its new interim head tells employees to return $800 gym bags given them by  former head Carl Greene.

Fox 29 has seen an e-mail sent by Michael P. Kelly to employees saying the must return the bags - or pay form them.

"The public was rightly outraged by the recent disclosure that PHA managers were given Tumi carry-on duffel bags costing $796 a piece at the PHA annual strategic planning conference in September 2009," Kelly said. "Please understand that I am not criticizing you for accepting this item, but I do want to make a statement that the gift was not an appropriate expenditure of PHA funds."

Kelly said he will attempt to return the bags to Nordstrom and put any money back into the PHA's general fund.

Also, five current and former maintenance workers have filed a federal lawsuit against PHA saying it eliminated their jobs after they reported a contractor's complaints about alleged extortion