King County Auditor

Lessons learned

Receipt this week of the long-awaited independent audit of the city of Cape Coral's fuel processes did little to quell the controversy surrounding a consultant's report presented to council last November.

That's too bad.

One, the months-in-the-making look at the city's fuel receipt and disbursement processes cost a lot of money as well as time and effort, not only on the part of the Lee County Clerk of the Courts Office, which assigned two auditors to the effort, but also on the part of the city's much understaffed auditor's office and its much overworked interim auditor, Margaret Krym.

Two, it does, in fact, answer some key questions, although in a way that probably caused some serious stress on both sides of the "unaccounted for" fuel controversy.

It also provides a pretty good game plan for the controls component of a fleet management system, the lack of which spurred the audit and remains the primary issue at hand.

First, some background.

Upon his hire, newly appointed City Manager Gary King appointed a pair of consultants to assist in his look at certain city operations. Bill Towler was tapped to examine aspects of the city's fleet management operations and he soon targeted city fuel processes and management.

Mr. Towler found a plethora of problems encompassing fuel receipt and fuel disbursement procedures, the monitoring software used and system controls. His Nov. 15, 2010, report advised council that the city failed to properly monitor fuel in and fuel out and that equipment intended to provide a system of controls was antiquated and, in some cases, missing, broken or bypassed.

In addition, he drew some conclusions - that municipal use of fuel for its various vehicles and motorized equipment had increased "over 360,000 gallons annually, nearly 100% since FY 2006, representing approximately $1,000,000 (additional) annual fuel costs at current pricing levels" even as the city had reduced staff, fleet size and work-equipment usage.

Actual savings projected for this fiscal year alone? $1,044,964.20, to be achieved by implementing proper controls and accountability of the fuel management process and restoring the integrity of the related data records so as to bring fuel consumption back to the levels used in 2006.

In his presentation to council, Mr. Towler stressed that he was not accusing any employees of theft but did state a key control system had been disabled, that data had been manually altered, and that fuel in and fuel out could not be reconciled over the five-year period examined.

State audit blasts King County over lack of oversight of taxpayer ...

King County's internal financial controls are a haphazard mishmash of systems with plenty of holes for potential abuse of public funds, a state audit released Monday concluded.

Investigators from the Washington State Auditor's Office found selected country construction projects cost $26 million more than initially authorized and that jobs are often completed late but rarely with a contractor penalty for tardiness. Rare, too, was any county audit of how it spent millions on construction projects.

Auditors also discovered a vault filled money from transit fares was left open. And they found nearly $13,000 in checks that had accumulated on the desk of one county employee who didn't know what to with them.

The auditor's report offers a stinging view of King County government, criticizing how it: Tracks money spent on construction projects. Keeps track of bus and trolley fares. Double-checks drug inventories in the county's pharmacies. Accounts for all the ammunition at the Sheriff's Office. Ensures the validity of personal property tax refunds. Guards such items as computers, scanners, and cameras from theft. The report cited a lack of standard financial controls that would enable the King County Council and King County executive to provide adequate financial oversight.

In many cases, the state auditors could not find sufficient records to perform adequate checks, the report said.

In January, the auditors stopped their work on the construction management program because the county could not provide complete access to records requested in July 2008.

"Of particular concern is the lack of a countywide system for tracking the two most important measurements of construction management performance: scheduling and budget. We could not determine why the county does not have a countywide system for measuring its construction-management processes," the state report said.

The report added: "The county has no method to quickly or routinely identify and track all construction projects at the division, department, executive or County Council level. Thus, it is very difficult for the county to readily identify all potential or current cost or scheduling issues. This makes it possible for scheduling delays and cost overruns to be concealed or reported when it is too late for timely and cost-saving corrective action."

A significant problem was determining why several construction projects went over their original budget estimates.

King County Auditor's Office records

County government

The Pacific reporter

King County Auditor's Office highlights of accomplishments 2000-present

History and Progress of King County, Washington ..