Internal Auditor

Comment Up

Tonight is another Budget Workshop meeting starting at 6:30. The first item on the agenda is discussion on the Internal Auditor, a position that the city manager does not want.

We had an internal auditor and the city manager got rid of him in 2009. Scot Menke had his most revealing audit on December 21, 2007 on Landfill Expenditure Deficiencies. In it he reported that

1. The City's purchasing ordinances were being routinely and completely circumvented without any evidence of opposition of the then Finance Director.
2. The State of Florida's Consultants Competitive Negotiation Act (CCNA) was violated without any objection from the then Finance Director
3. The then Finance Director failed to establish proper budgetary and proper controls over cash disbursements
4. The then Finance Director failed to properly supervise inexperienced Finance Department staff processing cash disbursements
5. The then Finance Director provided incomplete and inaccurate Financial Reports to the City Manager and to the Commission
6. The then Finance Director failed to recognize the full extent of the unauthorized landfill expenditures even after discovering them
7. The then Public Works Director continued approving landfill expenditures for payments months after being repeatedly made aware that there was no authorized funding source for those expenditures
8. The landfill vendor continued working, billing, and receiving funds from the City months after being repeatedly advised there was no funding source
9. The landfill vendor continued, working, billing, and receiving funds from the City for months in the absence of an approved contract covering those expenditures
10. The then Public Works Director and the landfill vendor failed to advise the City Commission of all the risks associated with the proposed landfill bioreactor project on which the unauthorized expenditures were made

The Internal Auditor had several recommendations but the most severe was his recommendation that the City pursue civil and criminal remedies for the CCNA violations. This never happened. It was rumored, at the time, that too many heads would role and go down with the then Finance Director in a ball of fire. She left the City and got hired immediately in a neighboring city.

When Menke's contract was not renewed, Stanton must have convinced the commission that it was a redundancy or something as we already had an external auditor that reported to her. Now that this position is back in the budget (many residents spoke out about the importance of the position and thought that it should be filled per our Charter), we now learn that the city manager once again believes it is a waste of money. Well no wonder, the Internal Auditor department has been budgeted for $324,681 with 2 employees with perks and God knows what else rather than hiring an independent contractor.

The City is in such a financial crisis that we really need to understand what is going on. An Internal Auditor who reports to the City Commission is imperative and he/she needs to have full access to all information in the quest for a fair audit. He can't be given a run-around like our Finance Advisory Board has been given for the past year.