When Jefferson County officials dismissed the internal auditor last month, they said it would save significant money for taxpayers, and, they noted, the auditor wasn’t turning up any serious problems anyway.
But questions have surfaced about the legitimacy of those explanations. Now, some in the county are wondering whether the auditor’s termination was really a way to prevent her from looking into the performance of county departments reporting to the elected officials who ordered the firing.
“It’s culture shock for them. The elected officials like running their own shop, and they don’t like unfettered access to their financial records and people looking at their performance,” said Bob Moser, an accountant and one of two volunteer citizens on the county’s audit committee, which was not consulted before the commission’s decision to dismiss auditor Susan Johnson.
“She got a lot of push-back from elected officials. She got push-back on P-cards.” The so-called procurement cards are the equivalent of company credit cards that employees and officials use for expenses.
When asked whether Johnson got any push-back from officials, Commissioner Kathy Hartman said: “She was expanding her authority into management review, which is not her expertise.” Hartman said that by management review, she meant “whether people were following policies and procedures.”
“Lack of understanding”
Hartman said that Johnson’s job as internal auditor was to look only for potential fraud. But Moser, and Casey Tighe, the other volunteer citizen member of the audit committee, disagreed. They said an auditor wants to catch small things before they turn into big problems, whether by financial, operational or performance audits.
“There has been a lack of understanding and acceptance of what the auditor’s role should be,” said Tighe, whose full-time job is director of the state Transportation Department’s audit division. “Without Susan, we lost an independent voice and accountability. It is disappointing.”
Johnson declined to comment for this story. Hartman, as well as Commissioners Faye Griffin and Kevin McCasky, both of whom did not return calls, issued a collective statement. McCasky was the only commissioner who opposed eliminating the audit department and Johnson’s job.
“The Board is analyzing the work previously performed by the Internal Audit Department and evaluating whether to continue to perform some of the functions using an external auditor,” according to the statement. “In a large county like Jeffco . . . fiscal accountability and transparency are paramount.”
Hartman, the only commissioner to answer questions, said the audit committee was not consulted ahead of time because it was “a personnel issue. We would’ve had to publish the meeting and have the auditor present.” She also said the impetus for the move was Griffin, the former county treasurer, who was elected in November.
“There was a newcomer to the commission, and she said, ‘I don’t like it,’ ” Hartman said. “The (audit) work will get done. But I’m not happy with how things appear.”
Reasons for layoff refuted
Griffin and Hartman had three primary reasons for laying off Johnson and her staffer in February: It would save the county more than $200,000; the auditor had not found any “significant savings”; and an external auditor in conjunction with the audit committee would have a “higher level of objectivity” and wouldn’t duplicate efforts.
But Hartman admitted that no cost-benefit analysis had been done ahead of time to justify whether the $200,000 in savings would really be achieved.
“It was an error on my part,” she said.
Moser, the accountant, said getting outside auditors to handle all the 2009 audits “won’t be as cheap as it was” with Johnson.
The Colorado auditor’s office shot down the idea that an external auditor would do a better job.
“Internal auditors are the ones in the weeds. They do the line items and the day-to-day procedures,” said spokeswoman Karen Hoover.
While an external auditor reviews the county each year, it is mostly to assure money received through federal and state programs is being handled properly. He or she does not closely review the various departments.
A few months after Johnson was hired to the newly created office in 2005, she and an external auditor found there was no way to account for more than $1 million in computer parts bought by the county’s information technology department.
Over the next three years, she handled a multitude of audits, finding big and small problems in a number of departments, including human services, the building department and open space. She also found problems with the use of P-cards, comp time and employee pay increases. At one point, she recovered nearly $100,000 in unclaimed grant revenue for the county.
Moving forward, Moser and Tighe say the audit committee will continue to push the commission to get a number of audits done this year. However, the commission hasn’t come up with a budget or plan yet.
The next audit committee meeting is April 27.
Karen Crummy: 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com
