May 12, 2009 Crumley Repeats My Words and Recommendation Almost Verbatim

Yesterday's Morristown City Council Budget Meeting was held at 5:00 pm in a small conference room near the Mayor's office.

Other than the Mayor, Councilmembers, City Administrator Jim Crumley, and a few members of city staff, only Tribune reporter Bob Moore, Gwen Holden, and I were present.

Revenue projections and expenditures were discussed, and I will go into both in more depth in future posts.

A significant and strongly worded recommendation to Council came from City Administrator Jim Crumley regarding the city's 2008 audit or lack thereof. Crumley's recommendation: You need a new auditor.

As reported previously, the city audit for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2008, is still not available. That audit was due December 31, 2008. It is so late now that Dennis Dycus of the State Comptroller's Office, Division of Municipal Audit, has called the city to find out what's going on.

The "lateness" of the city audit is nothing new, but it was underscored this year when the city found itself having to provide financial information to Moody's Investor's Services in order for Moody's to assign a debt "issuer" rating for the city.

Because 2008 audit figures were not available, Crumley and city staff had to provide "unaudited" figures for Moody's to use in its evaluation of city debt.

Jim Crumley stated to the Mayor and Council almost exactly what I stated in my April 29 post. You need to get a new city auditor. Click here for my April 29 post and scroll to the last paragraphs to see my comments on changing the city auditor.

Crumley repeated those same sentiments, noting that to be without an audit now (10-1/2 months after the end of the audit year and 4-1/2 months after the audit due date) is not "acceptable" and adding that another problem that has been discovered is that the current auditor incorrectly accounted for accrual of property taxes.

Crumley and other councilmembers briefly discussed sending out a Request for Proposals to audit/accounting firms to let those firms present information on costs and services to be provided. Crumley said that it may end up costing more to have a new auditor come in, but the intention would be to obtain a timely audit and to have new eyes look at the city's finances. Has common sense really taken over city hall?

Yes, new eyes and new auditors are needed to look at the city's finances AND to provide a timely audit. The city should have done this years ago as a matter of policy. It is my opinion that auditors should be rotated about every five years so that "fresh" eyes are periodically looking over city finances. This is not a slam at auditors. It is just in the nature of the process that you miss things that you go over and over again repeatedly. You can catch typos and mathematical errors of others more easily than you can catch your own.

When I served on county commission from 2002-2006, getting a new county auditor was my first priority. I pushed for auditors from the State Comptroller's office to replace the long-time county auditor and the rest, as they say, is history. The first audit by new auditors looking at the handling of county finances with fresh eyes resulted in 29 findings and irregularities--more than any other county in the state of Tennessee. The initial state audit of Hamblen County led to numerous corrections of lax procedures and violations of state law. The long-time county auditor at the time was the same firm that is currently the long-time city auditor.

My call to have the state auditors come in also resulted in a saving to the county of about $17,000 per year over the cost of the private auditor! Because I still think that fresh eyes are needed periodically for audits, I would like to see state auditor staff rotated from county to county periodically, so that counties could get the benefit of a fresh set of eyes but still maintain the cost savings of contracting with state auditors.

The county recognized the audit problem almost seven years ago and did something about it. Now, there is a recommendation that the city consider new auditors. Only time will tell if the city will at long last fix its "audit problem."

March 12, 2009 Ethics Committee Meets To Correct Violation of Open Meetings Act

The Hamblen County Ethics Committee met yesterday at 4:00 PM.

This time around, notice to the public was provided.

Chairman Joe Swann stated that the re-do meeting was in response to a recent lawsuit "challenging the adequacy of the notice provided to the public of its December 15, 2008, meeting."

He didn't state that he was put on notice of the violation of Tennessee's Open Meetings Act on January 22, but simply ignored the violation and did nothing until AFTER the lawsuit was filed on February 17. More on the lawsuit here.

Ethics Chair Joe Swann noted that this corrective meeting was to "re-visit" the December meeting concerning the county's disciplinary actions involving county employees Paul King and Frank Parker.

Joe outlined the procedure for yesterday's meeting by saying that (1) he was going to read the minutes of the December 15 meeting into the record, (2) open the meeting for public comment on the disciplinary actions involving Frank Parker and Paul King, (3) take further comments, if any, from the Committee, and (4) then he "would ask for a motion that we approve, affirm, and ratify by its entirety the actions taken at the prior committee meeting."

The Ethics Committee is composed of Chair Joe Swann, Stancil Ford, Bill Brittain, James Harrison, and Jack Cartwright. Bill Brittain was not at the December 15 meeting. Bill was at yesterday's meeting but recused himself from voting after I pointed out a conflict of interest on his part.

During public comments, I presented information and documents concerning the Parker and King situations. I asked the Committee to not only consider the Victim Albert Walker this time around but to recognize that their recommendation in regard to Paul King and Frank Parker will set a standard for ethical conduct of employees and will have a far-reaching impact on future ethics concerns.

Gwen Holden stated her concern for honesty in county employees and mentioned that this was not King's first criminal violation.

Not surprisingly, the Committee then took a vote and unanimously approved, affirmed, and ratified the same actions it had taken in December.

Ethics?

In its very first vote of consequence, the "Ethics" Committee set a very low standard for county employees.

The Ethics Committee decided to recommend and approve the transfer of county employees who lie and steal to other taxpayer-funded county jobs--with a pay reduction in the process.

Should the Ethics Committee be faced with future ethics violation, its endorsement on March 11 of continued employment for those who lie and steal in the course of their county employment will be the standard against which all other ethics violations are measured.

Prior to the vote, I asked Trustee Bill Brittain to recuse himself from any discussion or vote because of his inclusion as reference #2 on Frank's initial diversion request. I suggested that Brittain's recusal would remove any appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest on his part.

After being asked, Brittain did recuse himself, stating that he agreed that it would be "proper" for him to step aside. Brittain then added that he had supplied "a letter."

Mayor David Purkey, who was listed as reference #1 on court documents filed by Frank and Paul, had earlier asked that the record reflect that "neither was I asked nor would I have provided a reference in a court of law for either of these employees."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Frank and Paul from their supervisor.

Purkey would not provide a "reference" for either employee? Purkey provided the ultimate reference for Frank and Paul in continuing to provide a taxpayer-funded job for each of them. Purkey's reference may not have been in a court of law, but it was the "reference" that Frank and Paul were most concerned with.