Earlier today I sent this out as an email to elected County Commissioners and School Board members and staff, but then Ralph Smith and Fred Johnson quoted it on today's Lake County Round Table radio show on AM790, so here it is. I added a few sentences not in the original email to clarify some issues.
vj
The Orlando Sentinel opinion article
is at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpmyword22chambers042209apr22,0,6792959.story
Basically, the President of IIA
(based in Altamonte Springs), Richard Chambers, is writing about the problems at
the Orlando-Orange County Expressway authority, and how the lack of support for
internal audits by the Board resulted in the new internal auditor resigning.
The IIA establishes worldwide internal audit standards, and issues the Certified
Internal Auditor (CIA) certificate after two day exams. I am a CIA with 18
years internal audit management experience.
I suggest you read the article and
the reasons why Chambers said such a position is needed to improve
transparency.
My favorite
quotes from Richard Chambers:
It's often said that government can be
effective only if it maintains the public's trust. With this in mind, internal
auditors in government play a pivotal role in reinforcing that trust. Their
work provides assurance to taxpayers and citizens that resources are deployed
effectively and that public officials are good stewards of taxpayer dollars,
such as toll money.
Although most government officials welcome the
insight that comes from an effective internal-audit program, an increasing
number appear threatened by the scrutiny that accompanies critical audit results
— lashing out at the messenger. This might have been the case with the
Expressway Authority.
First, every government agency
receives “financial” audits of their annual financial statements by CPA firms,
but they are useless to determine if the leadership of the agency is effective,
efficient or economical. And, they may get a limited "performance audit" every 2-3 years from the State Auditor General. But the audits that IIA and I talk about are
more advanced operational or performance audits following IIA standards that evaluate
operations for efficiency, effectiveness, economy, regulatory compliance and
integrity. And, I am talking about LOCAL internal audit functions, and not those from the State or CPA firms, which with my 18 years audit experience, I don't consider as useful.
have been going to many School District meetings for almost 3 years, and have watched a number of County Commission meetings on tape and read budgets from both agencies.
In Lake County, it is important to note the differences in oversight attitude between the Lake County School Board and the rest of the County agencies. I
For instance, School Board member Larry
Metz wrote a strong internal audit policy and the Board hired a strong internal
auditor after also creating a strong internal audit committee. Then Board
member Cindy Barrow , who is the Board representative on the audit committee,
supported by the rest of the Board, initiated some internal audit reports to
publicly disclose some problems in three areas. The School Board is in the
final stages of modifying a pending ethics policy to also establish an
independent hotline to receive employee or citizen (or vendor) complaints about
impropriety, waste, fraud, abuse or violation of ethics. It is interesting to
note that I have not been able to find ANY Florida State agency that has such a
hotline, which is common in the Federal government and many
corporations.
In contrast, the Lake County (FL) Board of
Commissioners keeps trying to defer or hide audit results. Currently, they have
no CFO, no audit committee, have extensively delayed responses to a SHIP (grants to remodel low income homes) audit,
extensively delayed acting on questionable personnel issues disclosed in a
research report by local resident Lee Johnson, and they hide behind a Collier
County court case and don’t give permission to the County Clerk auditor to
conduct performance audits of their operations. Additionally, none of the other
elected County Constitution officers have requested or been the subject of performance
audits available through the County Clerk’s audit office. Finally, neither
the County Board operations or other Constitutional officers have a publicly
disclosed waste, fraud and abuse reporting hotline like is normal in the Federal
government and many corporations.
So, without the support of
leadership for common performance management (that are used in business to measure efficiency) or internal audit functions, the public is right to question the
ability of the responsible public officials in receiving future votes, due to
their lack of concern for fiscal controls and practices. If they don’t support
performance audits and public disclosure, you just have to wonder what is really
being hidden, which has continually been the case with Orlando’s Expressway
Authority.
So, if you meet Lake County School Board members from the current Board, and from last year (Jimmy Conner & Scott Strong), thank them for improving the oversight process over the school district spending.
But, if you meet a Lake County
Commissioner (Welton, Jennifer, Elaine, Linda or newbie Jimmy), you might ask them why 1) They don’t issue an open request to the
County Clerk’s audit office to independently plan and initiate audits of all
County operations without question, 2) They don’t freeze funding to other
Constitutional officers until they also issue written, non-restrictive requests
to the same audit office to plan, initiate and issue performance audits of their
operations.
And, if you meet Lake County STATE
legislators (Marlene O’Toole, Carey Baker, Alan Hays), ask they why there are so
many barriers to routine performance audits of County government operations, and
why Florida State agencies do not have waste, fraud and abuse reporting hotlines
for all complaints (not just consumer complaints) about government
practices.
Until that happens, I personally
would recommend that Lake County voters not return the responsible officials to any office
in the future. And, any new 2010 Lake County candidates for these offices just might want to add this issue to their campaign objectives! (One just emailed he will do so...)
We have seen many government
losses and failures from lack of oversight, and more is
needed.
