Posted on 07/29/2006 12:33:27 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Budget analysts changed employee time cards to allow the San Diego City Attorney's Office to funnel extra money from lucrative special city accounts, according to results of an internal investigation released yesterday.
City Attorney Michael Aguirre said the improper accounting, which took place from 1997 to 2004, included time cards being altered to reflect work for the wrong department, and part-time work billed as full-time.
Questionable billing of other city departments continued in his office through this week, Aguirre acknowledged, even though he said he put new policies in place to stop the activities within a month after he took over in December 2004. Yet he drew a distinction between the recent problem, which he characterized as “an allocation issue” – the office's Civil Enforcement Unit calculated hours worked based on a formula, not on actual time served – and the falsified time cards.
That, he said, could be tantamount to “misappropriation of public funds” and require legal action against supervisors who allowed it. He believes employees in other city departments also could have tampered with work records.
“If it happened in the City Attorney's Office, it's hard to believe it didn't happen elsewhere,” he said.
Aguirre said he conducted the investigation into his office's accounting at the behest of auditors hired by Mayor Jerry Sanders. Sanders called for the audit following a county grand jury report that accused the city of failing to properly account for special transactions between city departments.
This type of spending is outlined in contracts called “service-level agreements,” which offer details of work city employees from one department perform for another, and at what price. Aguirre said use of the contracts rose in the City Attorney's Office when his predecessor, Casey Gwinn, was in charge, from 1996-2004.
The deals, along with other types of special fees, have come under scrutiny in the past decade, particularly in regard to exchanges between the city's tax-supported general fund departments and those that receive fees from residents and businesses for services, called enterprise funds.
The grand jury has issued two critical reports, most recently in April, accusing the city of improperly tapping into those accounts.
The largest of the enterprise departments, the city's water and sewer services, are projected to bring in nearly $700 million in revenue in the fiscal year that began July 1.
The city's general-fund budget, backed by proceeds from taxes – sales, property and others – is set at $1 billion, but has borne increasing strain as the city contends with a billion-dollar pension debt and hundreds of millions in mandated infrastructure upgrades.
It's difficult for city officials to raise tax rates, but the City Council can – and has often – allowed fee increases for water and sewer services. That has led some critics to accuse the city of improperly siphoning money from the enterprise funds.
The auditors' report should help shed light on that issue. It is due Wednesday, said Fred Sainz, Sanders' spokesman, and will be broken into six parts examining the use of bond proceeds, ratepayer revenue and service-level agreements in two departments: water and wastewater.
Updates from the auditors, Sainz said, support Aguirre's conclusions about past practices in the City Attorney's Office. Sainz said it is unclear what remedies are available to the city.
The auditors also have consulted with officials from Kroll Inc., a risk management firm conducting a far broader inquiry into the city's financial practices.
Kroll is aware of the allegations about improper accounting in the City Attorney's Office, Sainz said, and is investigating.
We could probably fill a couple prisons with corrupt officals, if the will was there to do so.
and ya know what? I'd probably even vote for a bond to build 'em as long as they were used for that specific purpose.
San Diego accounting chicanery? Shocking!
In other news the sun rises in the east.
Where are the indictments?
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