Little Progress Made Toward a Forensic Auditor, and None Toward Respect for the Public

Another Board of Finance auditor subcommittee, and little progress.

Of course, progress depends on one’s goal. If one’s goal is stalling and making it less likely that a forensic audit is started (and finished) quickly, then yesterday’s meeting made progress.

However, if one’s goal is to get a forensic audit started, to get to the bottom of what happened and how extensive the damage might have been, then little progress was made.

No list of forensic auditors was provided to members, only the names of firms on the state list that have forensic specialties. The assumption was that if any forensic audit were to be done, it would be done by the same firm doing the annual audit.

This is, I believe, a poor assumption, because there is a serious conflict in the relationship with a town that the two auditors have. An annual auditor has a relatively collegial, long-term relationship with a town. A new auditor is going to want to please its new client and develop friendly relationships with its employees, particularly in the finance department.

A forensic auditor will have a much more adversarial and short-term relationship with the town. It’s looking for dirt. It doesn’t want to please anyone. It doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes.

An annual auditor doing a forensic audit is going to be divided between its interest in investigating and its interest in pleasing. It is unfair to the firm, and bad for the town, to put it in this position. The firm will certainly be willing to do this to please the client, but it’s not the right thing to do.

And it looks bad, as well. In a situation like ours, we want to know that our forensic auditor will stop at nothing to get at the truth. We don’t really want to see them around the next year, making small talk with our employees, making us wonder how thorough they really were. We want them to do their job and move on.

It's bad enough that the town kept on the same auditor for 25-30 years, and hired away one of its auditors to be comptroller. This goes against what everyone recommends, and against what Janet McCarty and Steve Fontana started recommending years ago: a new auditor. With this history of looking bad, our Board of Finance has to try to look good, and do the right thing.

The meeting began with chair Timothy Doheny saying that the subcommittee was not authorized to hire a forensic auditor. This is true, but it is an obstacle that can easily be dealt with, not something that should in any way affect what the subcommittee does. If it believes a forensic auditor should be hired, it should tell the Board of Finance and ask it to immediately meet and authorize this. Sadly, all three members of the subcommittee declined to do this, despite requests from the public. Mr. Hallahan, who wants to hire a separate forensic auditor ASAP, felt that the others were coming around. I don’t share his optimism, but I do hope he is right.

In fact, the Board of Finance chair, Michael Peterson, was in the audience, and he was not asked his opinion on how the Board of Finance might vote on authorizing a forensic auditor, nor did he speak to this or other issues during public comments. Especially considering that his letter on his support of a forensic auditor has appeared in at least three local newspapers, I believe he had an obligation to join the discussion of this issue.

Mr. Hallahan will report back on possible forensic firms, but the others still lean heavily toward having any forensic audit done by the regular auditor. The question is, since they say that the annual auditor will need to get a feel for the town first, before they begin their forensic audit, and since the annual audit is not due until December 31, would the forensic audit report come out before or after the election?

Audience members were strong in insisting that people needed to know what had happened before they vote for candidates in November. But they won’t be in control of the process, the Board of Finance and the finance department will.

Another important issue that arose at this meeting is a problem throughout town government: holding public comments after rather than during each meeting. NHTV’s policy is to film only until adjournment. That is why town boards and commissions relegate public comments until after adjournment, so that what people who go to meetings say cannot be heard and seen by the rest of the public.

For years, Janet McCarty and others have been asking town boards to change this policy. But Mr. Doheny opposed Mr. Hallahan’s suggestion to hold public comments during the meeting, saying that public meetings do not allow this. There is no truth to that. In fact, the Board of Education allows it, as do town boards across the country.

It is a question of respect for the people by their officials. It is a question of openness of government, of letting the people hear what other people, non-politicians, have to say. As I said after the NHTV cameras turned off, we have experts in many fields in the audience at meetings, and their opinions and knowledge are valuable. But the town officials who form the majority of our boards – that is, Republican politicians – do not want to share these opinions and knowledge with the public. They would rather be closed than respectful.

Another argument for allowing public comments during the meeting is that if people share their knowledge and expertise, members might change their mind and someone might call for a revote. After adjournment, that's not possible. Listening to what citizens have to say includes the possibility of what they say actually having an effect on officials. That's what hearings are for.

We need more and more people to come to meetings in order to put a stop to this practice throughout the town.

To read my notes on the meeting, click here.