Following the regular session of the Fort Wayne City Council meeting, on Tuesday evening, several local residents made some honest, heart felt, and even contributed a little humor in the way of comments. This took place near the end of the meeting when there is time provided for the public to speak. Three of the speakers are associated with local blogs on the Internet.
What appeared to get under the skin of two City Council members was the comments these private citizens made regarding the City's 2006 financial audit that was just released. Seldom, after private citizens address the council do any of the council members make any direct comments about what had been stated. Well, Tuesday night was the exception as Sam Talarico and Tom Pape took several people to task.
What was sad is the condescending tone and selection of words used by both of them to address the issue of what the Indiana State Board of Accounts audit report spelled out. While neither councilman of addressed the actual content presented in the audit report they told the people in their own way they didn't know what they where talking about.
Every year the Indiana State Board of Accounts completes an audit of every town and city in the state of Indiana. This is to provide an oversight review of the financial activities of that unit of government. The auditors go through the records and if they find any issues, they are noted. Most of the issues are resolved with clarifications between the auditors and local officials. These items do not even make the audit report.
Issues that appear to be a major breach of acceptable financial accounting practices become part of the final report. The auditors prepare the final report after the audit is complete. The noteworthy issues are listed in the official audit report and sometimes will site Indiana statute that applies to the given problem area.
The final report is then reviewed within the State Board of Accounts operation before being sent to the City. Once the City receives the report they are required to respond in writing. If they disagree with the findings or agree with the findings and provide the corrective action plan to avoid such issues in the future.
You can click on below to view the the last two completed audit reports for Fort Wayne and the replies the City offered.
2005 audit report: http://www.in.gov/sboa/WebReports/B27344.pdf
2006 audit report: http://www.in.gov/sboa/WebReports/B30477.pdf
City Controller Pat Roller was quoted in both local papers that the information provided by the State Board of Accounts was only informational, to show citizens how the city had complied with the exceptions. That is pure bogus! The audit report only denotes exceptions to acceptable standard practices. There is no common sense reason for the State Board of Accounts to raise an issue about something the City was doing right. If anyone doubts this then they should call the State Board of Accounts at 1-317-232-2521 and speak with Mr. Charles W. Pride.
Soon the State Board of Accounts will issue what is called a "Certified" audit report. This will contain the final findings of the audit and official reply from the City. At that point the audit will be sent onto the Indiana Attorney General for review.
It APPEARS the Attorney General is limited in only securing the refund or return of funds that where found to be missing or miss issued. These would be civil actions against people or companies.
The audit reports for 2005 and 2006 do not show any missing funds. The Attorney General will most likely not have an interest in the contents of the audit reports within his department based on the current understanding.
The two audit reports DO indicate issues that may be subject to the Allen County Prosecuting Attorney to review. This would be for consideration of criminal law violations. The reports note the City's failure to obtain and maintain forms regarding conflicts of interest. These conflict of interests forms apply to all city employees, contractors, elected officials and appointed officials. It should be noted that the 2006 audit report took issue with the City for failure to comply with a 2005 audit demand on this very subject.
With only few conflict of interest statements available to the State Board of Accounts they where to site only one case in the 2006 audit that the City was not in compliance. There could be dozens or more of conflicts of interest violations but without the documents the State Board of Accounts could not review them.
If one reads the City's response in 2005 and then 2006 they offered nearly the same corrective action. One can detect the auditors took the City to task for not doing what was asked to be completed as noted in the 2005 audit.
It would be up to the Allen County Prosecuting Attorney to seek a full and complete investigation into the conflicts of interest issues. People found violating the conflicts of interest statute are subject to being charged with a class "D" felony. Every time they violated the statute is open to an additional charge.
In fairness to the local Prosecuting Attorney, she should seek a Special Prosecutor and bring in the Indiana State Police for the investigative part of the investigation. The Indiana State Police have specially trained forensic audit investigators that would be needed.
For those that believe this would stop the Harrison Square project from going forward, it appears the chances are doubtful. Even if the majority of the community opposes part or the entire project it is unsure if the courts would or could stop it.
If the hope is to clean up the "good old boys" club and return accountability to the tax payers then this may well do it. Everyone is accountable to the taxpayers!
It appears things are totally run a muck. However, the taxpayers are not the ones that made the conscientious decisions to trample on the law.
It is time for the Prosecuting Attorney to prove the City operated correctly, regarding conflicts of interests, or the few chastised citizens where right! There is no turning back or hiding, as the public records and information is out there. There is only two questions to answer. Is it true and if so, how wide spread is it?
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3 comments:
I have known Mr. Pape and his entire family since he was eight and I can assure you that he is not the same person I once knew.
It must be something about politics, being a lawyer, being one of those few insiders, that really changes people.
This whole HS situation I believe is just the tip off the money machine.
I think we should hold a public rally of some sort and demand the prosecutor look into this!
Fort Wayne's Own "Boston Tea Party"
October 13,
Protest at the Square
March to the Lawton Street Bridge to throw in the Tea Bag....
Libertarian Party of Allen County
I was one of the seven people that commented at Tuesday's council meeting. Part of Pape's reply was specifically directed towards what I had said. In addition, I have a feeling that my perceived irrevererence might have been at least partially responsible for Hayhurst's remarks. That being said, I would like to speak in their defense.
Most of the blogs I've read and the people I've spoken with have the general attitude of "How dare they?" regarding the councilmen's behavior. In my opinion though, they were not all that out of line.
My comments were intended to solicit a response. And after listening to the seven of us speak, I think I would have been more upset if they did not respond.
They say you should have a thick skin to go into politics. But if your skin is so thick that you can take a long string of criticisms and just ignore it, I'm not sure I want you representing me.
Although I don't feel Pape's reply to me fully covered what I had said, I will say that his retort of "If not this, then what?", is a valid point to consider. And of course his challenge here is not just to find a policy that better fits one persons individual needs, but rather one that will benefit a greater number of people than the current policy.
As to Hayhurst's reply, yes it's true that people speaking to council are sometimes throwing out false information. But I think the same can sometimes be said for members of council as well. So I do think he made a valid point, just over reacted a bit.
He was trying to make another point also, but it was partially masked by his apparent anger. This message was intended for the small group of citizens who attend and speak at council meetings regularly.
I think the message that he was trying to send was "Just because you come here frequently and are very vocal about your opinions, don't think that they count any more than the thousands of other constituents that I hear from in other ways." I could kind of hear this message, but it was not articulated well. Instead, it sounded kind of like "Just shut up, you're a bunch of idiots and your lucky we even let you stand before us.
I guess the bottom line for me is that as long as they will continue to listen to my rants, then I'll be willing to listen to theirs. Who knows, eventually it may evolve into actual communication.
I know Crawford, Talarico and Shoaff also commented, but I can't recall with clarity what they said. I think though that it was very similar to Pape and Hayhurst, only with a little less raw emotion.
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