Shelby Co. (ECWd) –
The Shelby County Board Chairman has failed to address the Dive Team Forensic Audit during a public meeting for months. As it stands, that Audit has not been approved and is considered a “Draft” until the board takes action.
We recall that the past chairman received an improper criminal subpoena for copies of a draft audit that had not been provided to the board, as stated in the article at this link. For those who wish to question our claim that the subpoena was improper, those facts were laid out in these articles here and here.
The issue of the former chairman not providing the draft to the SA garnered all kinds of claims of impropriety by the former chairman, to include allegations that the board at the time, under the leadership of the chairman, was not being transparent and needed to resign. Transparency promises from the candidates running last fall became a major talking point.
Where is that transparency now that they are in office?
We know the board received the dive team audit, yet neither Mayhall nor any board members have placed the dive team audit on the agenda for discussion, let alone approval.
We provided a copy of the audit to three elected officials, asking for verification that this was the audit provided by the auditors. Neither Mayhall nor the County Clerk Jessica Fox would confirm the inquiry. The County Treasurer confirmed it was, in fact, the audit provided by the auditors.
Notable from the audit is the failure of responses to numerous requests from the auditor for supporting documentation. Current County Board member and Dive Commander Austin Prichard would be a key person responsible for providing the requested information. Some of those similar requests through the Freedom of Information Act have resulted in multiple FOIA lawsuits against the county and dive team (division of the county) for their refusal to provide the requested records.
So much for transparency.
It has been alleged that the audit is meaningless because the auditing firm has ties to the Edgar County Watchdogs. Would that be the same case for an auditor who does the taxes for board members while at the same time auditing the county sheriff’s payroll?
When questioning an auditor’s reliability, we must rely on history in Shelby County when similar auditor concerns were raised during the discussion on auditing payroll in the county.
Former Chairman Bruce Canon stated it best as outlined in this article.
“well, I’ll tell you, your guys, Uhm, you’re totally ignoring the professional oaths of a CPA…… “
“Number are numbers, you can’t fudge numbers”
What is Mayhall and the others afraid of? Where is the transparency promised?
As we see it, the audit is yet another example of failed leadership in the county, and rather than address it and move on, it gets buried from the public.
For those who want to know how we got a copy of this audit, we do not know, by design. Anyone who wishes to provide us with records anonymously can do so, as outlined at the bottom of the page at this link. The reason we set up this process was to protect whistleblowers. A process we have used for years and even fought in court to protect.
Once we get such records, we send it to officials in the public body and ask for confirmation that they are, in fact, an accurate record of what was provided to the public body, in this case, from the auditors. In this case, only the treasurer responded to our inquiry. She confirmed it was the same as what was provided by the auditors.
On the subject of Transparency, lack thereof, stay tuned for the “rest of the story” on the farm lease approved for one person yet given to another.
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