Audit attacks Housing Authority's business practices
BY RAY GRONBERG : The Herald-Sun, Oct 23, 2006 : 10:25 pm ET
DURHAM -- An annual financial audit commissioned by the Durham Housing Authority has savaged the agency's business practices, identifying 14 specific problems that included failures to keep proper inventories and verify the eligibility of rental-subsidy recipients.
The problems are significant enough that the auditing company hired to check the authority's 2005 books wouldn't stand behind them, saying that because officials had failed to document a couple of key assets, it couldn't determine whether the authority's "upper-level financial statements [were] fairly presented." -cut-
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-781277.html
* The folks running Durham can't seem to get anything right.
Council mulls performance audit
BY RAY GRONBERG : The Herald-Sun, Oct 23, 2006 : 9:05 pm ET
DURHAM -- City Council members say they want City Manager Patrick Baker's advice on how they could go about securing performance audits of Durham government's top three problem departments.
Members are supposed to give Baker their separate lists of potential targets in the next few days, and the manager in turn is supposed to compile them and present his recommendations at a council work session on Nov. 9. The decision emerged from a work session last week.
They acknowledged that their interest in Councilman Thomas Stith's proposal is coming because of a recent series of operational problems highlighted by the fire that erupted at the city's yard-waste dump on Sept. 10.
"Up until two months ago, I thought we were on an upward trajectory," Councilwoman Diane Catotti said. "Then we had a fire, and all of a sudden we got back to rock bottom." -cut-
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-781272.html
* Free advice-- fire Baker and then resign en masse.