The agenda for the upcoming Tuesday, Sept. 21 Lake County Board meeting includes an agenda item (tab 31 which is HERE) in the County manager comments section asking the Board to approve the implementation of a Fraud, Waste & Abuse Hotline established by the County Clerk's office.
GREAT!
I have been after the School Board for three years to do this, and they have not. The hotline idea here was added to the referenced audit report after discussions that Lee Johnson and I had with the prior County Clerk Audit Director.
The one negative is that it says the Internal Audit Dept. or the County Management would investigate the reported incident. I would prefer it ONLY be the Internal Audit Dept., and not anyone in the County BCC staff. You don't want someone in management reviewing a situation and "fixing" documents (not that I expect it to happen, but you want to prevent any suspicions of staff "fixing" evidence.)
Additionally, it said results "would be available" tot he public upon request. A much better, transparent approach would be to publish the facts on the website, written so as to removed ability to identify the person reporting the incident, or anyone who was not relevant to the facts.
War Stories:
- As an internal auditor, I investigated a confidential report that a region manager was running improper expenditures through the payments process of one of the manufacturing plants he supervised. he would wait until the plant manager was out of town, then turn in documents signed by him to authorize payments. I went there using a different reason, and after a computer search of payment records and visits to vendors, we found the region manager was upset over being passed over for promotion, and had run about $40,000 in payments through the system to pay vendors to build a race car engine and custom trailer for his son. The racecar engine was written up on a handwritten receipt that said "repair engine for forklift" for $8,000 without ANY list of parts or labor hours which would normall be a part of that type of expense. The management fired him, but did not prosecute him. Because they did not prosecute him, he went to a competitor and became a serious problem for the company in one business market area.
vj
Below is the text explaining the program from the agenda request document:
In the audit that was conducted of the Employee Services Department, a recommendation was made that the County create a Fraud, Waste and Abuse Hotline to allow citizens to report fraud, waste or abuse. The Board’s financial auditors also recommend this type of program. Several other counties programs were reviewed by the County Manager’s office, and the Clerk and County Manager have worked together to put together a process for citizens to report fraud, waste or abuse in County government operations. Citizens will be able to anonymously report this type of activity to the Clerk’s Internal Audit Division. Complaints will be screened by the Internal Auditor, and if they appear to be within the authority of county government and present a facial ( I think they meant "factual" - vj) claim, the report will be investigated by either the Clerk or County management. Responses to reports will be made available for citizens to review. Citizens who make reports of activities which are not within the jurisdiction of county government, such as those involving other governmental agencies or elected officials, will be directed to the appropriate agency to make a report. Any allegations of criminal activity will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency for investigation.
