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Wednesday, May 23, 2012
City auditor position still vacant
by Kathleen Haley, published on July 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM
Storyline: Sacramento City Hall / Politics
Though the city has not had an auditor since May 20, important tasks are not being left undone as a result, according to Assistant City Manager Marty Hanneman. But Mayor Kevin Johnson's spokesman said that the missing position means there is a lack of accountability.
The city’s internal auditor’s office has undergone many recent changes. The city’s former auditor Marty Kolkin left Sacramento in May to take a job in Santa Monica. And the City Council decided in June to pull the auditor position away from the city manager’s office and place it under the City Council’s authority.
Now that the Sacramento City Council is supervising the city auditor’s office, councilmembers -- not the city manager’s office -- will hire the next auditor.
The transition has been in the works for months: Councilmembers in April said that the auditor’s office would operate in a more transparent fashion if it reported to the City Council.
Councilmembers Steve Cohn and Kevin McCarty said in April that the auditor would be more independent if he or she answered to the City Council. They suggested that an auditor’s investigations of city departments could be compromised because the auditor reports to the city manager’s office, which oversees city departments.
Hanneman said the city is not being impacted by the missing position because Kolkin "had wrapped up a lot of the audits the council asked him to do."
As the city’s internal auditor, Kalkin was working on a list of projects the City Council had assigned to him, Hanneman said, noting that there are plenty more projects remaining on the list. Still, at the time Kolkin left, he was at a good stopping point, Hanneman noted.
But Mayor Kevin Johnson’s spokesman Joaquin McPeek expressed a different view on the vacancy. "No auditor means no accountability," he said.
Hanneman also responded to questions from The Sacramento Press about why the hiring process has not moved more quickly. Hanneman said city officials were working on the kind of ordinances they would need to establish in order to move authority for the auditor’s office to the City Council from the city manager’s office.
Now that the auditor’s office is under the jurisdiction of the City Council, the city’s Human Resources Department is in the process of hiring a recruiting firm for the hiring process, Hanneman said.
The auditor will be selected from a nationwide search, Hanneman said. A hiring process to recruit for a specialized position usually takes months, he noted.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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A little extra history lesson…
To 2/14/2009 “Sacramento auditor blocked from looking at agency” http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1624768.html
February 17, 2009…Marty Kolkin puts forward a list of 10 dept. to be proposed for audit this year. The city manager’s office took that list and modified it… removing Development Services from that list prior to it going to Council… Watch the meeting!
http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8 item 24
Listen to the differences of an internal audit to government accounting standard vs restructuring assessment proposal (remember the mayor’s proposed 191,000 dollar “free” audit/restructuring assessment). Here the council’s comments regarding how could a Dept. that was upside down, be removed from the proposed list for this year’s audits…(that dept is now the Community Development Dept…restructured…and probably difficult to look back upon…given layoffs and movement of personnel ).
Now go ahead to
http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8
February 24, 2009 item 27
We had two auditors-and were hiring two more... work plan includes DSD or aka CDD
http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8
Watch this meeting!
April 21, 2009 Item 22 We find out that Mr. Kolkin is leaving Sacramento for Santa Monica…our other Auditor is out on Maternity leave…we still haven’t hired the two additional auditors-Hence no audits for this year yet!
Council members 8-1 (with the exception of the Mayor) voted to have the Auditor’s office outside the oversight of the City Manager’s office-the mayor wanted to maintain the status quo of the Auditor answering to the City Manager, who ultimately would have hiring/firing designation over that person.
http://sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8
May 19, 2009 item 26
Vote again for place of independent auditor position voted 8-1 in favor of oversight by CC not CM (Mayor against)
The city manager answers to 9 elected representatives and requires 6 votes to be hired or fired…a super majority and in my opinion a good thing! Checks and Balances are better served when fiscal oversight of the departments under the control of that manager are under that same group of elected officials.
Very few know if Marty Kolkin was forced out or just chose to go where his talents, expertise, professionalism and integrity were more appreciated at the executive authority level. The Council has stepped up to remove the single person authority over that position…Unfortunately we lost Marty Kolkin in the process.
Hopefully our new independent auditor and staff will process all of those same high standards. The sooner the better…The City will be better off!
Let's see, I forgot the city manager is from Portland, the Development Services Manager is from Portland. Wow! What a coincidence!! Or is it not a coincidence? Could there be fear of some skulduggery that will be uncovered? Oh no, that can't be because that department has touted "transparency" over and over. Yet, why are some interested members of the public now reporting that such "transparency" has become increasingly murky!
It would seem that the first job for council's new auditor is to find out why.