How Not To Watch Your Money
How Not To Watch Your Money
In this week's saga of the city's missing millions, a troubling reveal about the firm hired—at $500,000—to ready the mess. Meantime, more radio silence from the Mayor
May. 25, 2018
So terminal week, an exasperated Councilman Allan Domb recalled city Finance Manager Rob Dubow and Treasurer Rasheia Johnson for a hearing to effort and intermission through the fog of the city's embarrassing bookkeeping practices. The background: The city nevertheless can't discover $27 1000000 of your tax dollars, and, over the course of multiple hearings, every bit the terse, defensive testimony of Dubow and Johnson has, shall nosotros say, "evolved," it at present appears that five metropolis accounts, habitation to some $40 billion over the years, oasis't been reconciled, in some cases since 2010.
Reconciliation, of class, is a basic accounting exercise. Not doing it for years would likely result in termination for any mid-level bookkeeper in the private sector. Withal Dubow and Johnson continue to dissemble and obfuscate, fifty-fifty at present that Domb, during last week's testimony, revealed something shocking about the outside bookkeeping firm the city hired—for up to $500,000!—to help set this mess. It's at the 27:15 marker:
Let's highlight that substitution about Horsey, Buckner & Heffler, the outside firm:
DOMB: The business firm that nosotros hired for this consolidated greenbacks account. Take we checked the backgrounds of that firm carefully?
JOHNSON: We went through the RFP procedure, checked their references and their standing, yes.
DOMB: Because I just looked on the Cyberspace, which you lot can do today, and I noticed that one of the principles had their accounting license suspended from '02 to '11. From what I'm told, it'due south pretty tough to go your accounting license suspended.
I did the same Google search as Domb. Turns out that, in a Securities and Exchange Commission example alleging fraud and insider trading against a firm called MERL Holdings, auditor Michael Horsey consented to an SEC club finding that he had engaged in improper professional person conduct. The society prohibited Horsey from appearing or practicing before the SEC for two years. This is who is going to help reform our shoddy bookkeeping practices?
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In their latest testimony, Dubow and Johnson accept moved the goalposts for figuring all this out, now challenge that some of the unreconciled accounts won't be reconciled for months. (They'd previously said they would be reconciled by June 30). Yesterday, Domb introduced a "Monthly Reconciliation Reporting" neb that would mandate Dubow to file with Council a monthly accounting study, too every bit a resolution authorizing Council's Committee on Finance to conduct an investigatory public hearing to review Horsey, Buckner & Heffler's work.
Yesterday on the floor of Council, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown warned against scapegoating Johnson. She'due south right. This ought to be about accountability, non scapegoating.
Both the bill and the resolution would seem to be necessary steps, but the Keystone Cop-like succession of testimonies during the last three weeks of hearings reveals a blueprint of defensiveness and deflection by Dubow and Johnson that no amount of Council oversight can truly correct. Instead of owning the problem and reforming the system, Dubow and Johnson are quibbling and dissembling, fighting transparency.
In fact, watching the display, I couldn't milkshake the feeling that Dubow's performance reminded me of someone, just I couldn't quite put my finger on precisely who. And then I remembered: It was Nathan Thurm. That's the lawyer played by Martin Short in the 1984 Saturday Dark Alive spoof of hour; You tell me if Thurm'south squirming defensiveness beginning at the 3:14 mark—"I'chiliad not being defensive. Y'all're the one being defensive. Why is it ever the other person who's being defensive?"—is, in its attempts to deflect rather than man upward, at all reminiscent.
As I suggested last week, Dubow and Johnson have grossly violated the city's fiduciary responsibleness to its taxpayers, which could bear upon the urban center's bond rating. Both should do the right thing and step downward, or the mayor should break his silence and practice as the mayor of Spokane, Washington did when consecutive audits of his city's accounting practices found material weaknesses. "I wish y'all the very all-time in your future professional endeavors," wrote Mayor David Condon to his director of accounting.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission instance alleging fraud and insider trading, accountant Michael Horsey consented to an SEC club finding that he had engaged in improper professional carry. This is who is going to assistance reform our shoddy accounting practices?
Yesterday on the floor of Council, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Dark-brown warned against scapegoating Johnson. She'south right. This ought to be almost accountability, non scapegoating. The succession of Quango hearings on this subject have proven that systemic issues take long existed, pre-dating Johnson's tenure. Merely neither Johnson nor Dubow—both of whom have served the city honorably—accept addressed those bug with the urgency required, letting over a year get by betwixt finding out nearly the trouble and issuing the RFP that ultimately resulted in the pricey contract to Horsey's firm.
Clearly, fresh eyes are needed to oversee how the city handles your money. Because think about information technology: Mayor Kenney, who has already levied the well-intentioned but regressive soda revenue enhancement, is now seeking to enhance belongings taxes. Meantime, Council President Darrell Clarke is preventing a hearing on Domb's bill to endeavor and collect the $400 million in delinquent real estate taxes owed to the City.
If you're a taxpaying Philadelphian—black or white, male or female—someone who pays a mortgage, obeys the law, and loves your city…well, you've got to look at all this and wonder how anyone in city regime could have the gall to talk about raising new taxes when non only oasis't local officials demonstrated the ability to collect those they're already owed—they've now proven incapable of accounting for millions of taxes that have already been paid. Y'all deserve better customer service than that.
Photo: Jason Dirks via Flickr 
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/how-not-to-watch-your-money/
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