By month's end, Sun Valley city officials hope to bring in for consultation outside forensic auditing firms to provide details on what a review of city departments would entail and how much it would cost. Just what they are looking for remains unknown to the public so far.
"For me, the idea of a forensic audit is to ascertain ... where we are and help us in the future to become more efficient [and] more functional, [and] correct deficiencies or policies in the past that were there," Mayor Dewayne Briscoe said during a City Council meeting Thursday. "I'm not looking back. The election was over last fall. I'm looking forward as to how we can run the city efficiently and with as much responsibility as possible. That's what I'm hoping to get out of the audit."
The two new council members, Michelle Griffith and Franz Suhadolnik, said examining the past is necessary to get up to date.
"You have to go back before you can go forward in this mess," Suhadolnik said. "We need to know if there's wrong-doers, who they are. And the citizens of this city need to know."
The city already is undergoing an independent investigation related to internal matters, the details of which also aren't publicly known.
"There's an investigation ongoing in the city," Briscoe said. "This is not necessarily part of it."
Briscoe put the topic of a Fire Department audit as an agenda item at the March 15 City Council meeting, at the request of the council. Several council members, however, said they had wanted a full city audit.
"For me, the key thing is that this isn't just focused on the Fire Department," said Councilman Bob Youngman. "That's just not the case. It's a forensic audit of the city. There is no department that is not going to be audited, in my mind. I have concern across the board."
Briscoe said the extent to which the auditors would go depends on what the city wants out of the audit.
"The council has to set some parameters as to how far do you want to go look at what items," he said.
It also depends on how much they want to spend. According to Virginia Egger, interim executive assistant to the mayor, auditing just one department could cost $45,000—or more or less, depending on what is uncovered during the process.
"I think we ought to do it and do it thoroughly and completely and swallow the price because people of this city deserve an answer, and the City Council deserves an answer of what's gone on here the last four years," Suhadolnik said. "The public needs to know."
The council plans to discuss where that money could come from at its April meeting.
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Officials have already had to find funds to cover legal bills arising from a lawsuit brought last fall by former City Administrator Sharon Hammer. Hammer dropped the suit in January but that and related suits required a shifting of funds to cover the city's legal expenses.
As the city continues to take heat from the public, officials are asking for patience as investigations continue.
"I expect maybe some resolution, hopefully within two weeks to a month, that we will either get a directive from other state agencies directing us what they want from us in a forensic audit and whether another state agency will do the forensic audit, or whether they will require the city to do it," Briscoe said. "They don't want two independent forensic audits going on the same time. I don't mean to confuse you, but that's the most that I can say at [this] time."
Sun Valley resident Kevin Laird said the situation should never have gotten to this point. He said council members should have been paying more attention to financial irregularities or questionable bills that may have surfaced.
"For some reason, it seems like that has not been done the last four years," he said. "If this is a ... systemic problem, it should have been identified a long time ago. You as a council are supposed to approve the bills. You should ask questions. You should be thorough in your approach. You should not get to where you need a forensic audit. You should have been doing this four years ago, Mayor, when you were on council."
He also pointed to the Treasurer's Office.
"This is beyond ridiculous that it's gotten to a point where you need a forensic auditor to do what you should have been doing—watching the people's money," he said.
Briscoe responded by saying, "The council has been responsible watching the people's money."
"The council approves the budget and does budgetary amendments once a year," he said. "What has been discovered are things that were ... not under the council purview. And that's what we're talking about."
Griffith said she is as perplexed as many citizens.
"I don't know how we got here, either, quite frankly," she said. "But the fact of the matter is we are here now. And so, unfortunately, whatever events led to where we are now, I truly believe that the way to unravel that is to get to the bottom of it. We're never going to be able to move forward until we all know what's going on.
"I hope that [the public] will allow us the latitude to get to the bottom of it any way we can, and we'll try to do it by spending as few of your and my tax dollars as possible, and we'll try to do it as quickly as possible, without landing us in another lawsuit."
Rebecca Meany: rmeany@mtexpress.com
City to establish finance committee
At the suggestion of former Mayor Dave Wilson, the city of Sun Valley on Thursday decided to establish a finance committee so council members have more oversight over financial matters. Mayor Dewayne Briscoe will appoint two council members and city staff to the committee. He will bring recommendations of appointees and their duties to the council at a later meeting.
Dewayne Briscoe
