Denver is the only city in Colorado with an independently elected auditor. Unfortunately, the archaic section of the city charter that created that unique office saddled it with duties that make it more of a glorified bookkeeper than a true financial watchdog.
Now, a blue-ribbon task force has crafted a plan to revitalize the office by transferring its clerical functions to a chief financial officer – freeing the auditor’s office to actually focus on serious auditing functions.
Despite the job title, the city’s 102-year-old charter doesn’t actually specify auditing as one of the responsibilities of the auditor. Instead, it saddles the auditor with payroll and accounting functions for a host of city agencies. The kind of routine auditing most citizens wrongly assume the auditor does – reviewing the books with a gimlet eye to be sure nobody is double-billing the city – is actually contracted out to professional accounting firms.
The most important job of a modern government auditor such as the Colorado state auditor is “performance auditing” – a concept that didn’t even exist when Denver’s charter was drafted a century ago. Performance audits go beyond merely verifying that nobody stole any money and focus on whether the best available management practices are in place. They often propose reforms that give taxpayers better service for less money.
The Denver auditor’s office does occasionally try such performance audits. But it’s doubly handicapped when it does so. The office is so overburdened with routine clerical functions that it can spare little time for more serious work. Worse, because the auditor issues paychecks and signs off on city contracts, the office is effectively auditing itself when it does performance audits that include evaluating its own work after the fact. The blue-ribbon committee aptly labeled that backtracking over the auditor’s own work as a conflict of interest.
The mayor’s office has been fine-tuning the proposal, and the City Council Finance Committee is scheduled to review the plan today. The overall thrust would create an appointed chief financial officer to consolidate and oversee the city’s routine payroll and bookkeeping functions. The changes would also strengthen the auditor’s office by giving it stronger powers and more resources to devote to its core duties, including performance auditing.
An auditor who actually audits is a beguiling concept. The council should put the reform plan on the ballot for voter approval in November.
