I guess the low light of the night for me was early on seeing new City Clerk Robert Clark bullshit the City Council on why the Administration will not let the City Council review the original invoices of the claims on the docket they are being asked to approve in advance of the meeting. First, he termed himself “an auditor” despite the fact he lacks the credential to issue an audit opinion and then he told the City Council he could not walk the invoices from the finance office across the street to the City Council annex without getting in trouble with his auditors for not having all of the original invoices, the false assumption underlying this line of reasoning being that his invoices will automatically sprout legs and walk off if he brings them to the City Council Chambers in advance of the meeting for the Council to review. It was pathetic.
But since Clark, who according to Mayor Fillingame worked for a few years at Alexander and Van Loon before spending a few years at Hancock Bank brought up yellow book audits, I figure Slabbed can dispel this myth since your correspondent actually possesses the proper credential to render an audit opinion in the State of Mississippi.
When Jennifer Bell, the City’s auditor, pulls her triple-purpose non-payroll disbursement test (i.e. transactional and compliance testing of the claims dockets), she will require the City furnish the backup documentation to the items she selects for testing (most auditors myself included use a random number generator for sample selection purposes so the results can be statistically analyzed). Copies of possessed original invoices are not an acceptable form of audit evidence for most auditors, myself included, except in very limited circumstances. Auditing Standards Codified, Section 500 explains:
Audit evidence provided by original documents is more reliable than audit evidence provided by photocopies, facsimiles, or documents that have been filmed, digitized, or otherwise transformed into electronic form, the reliability of which may depend on the controls over their preparation and maintenance.
And so at the end of the day, Clark is asking to the City Council to accept a lesser form of documentary evidence to rely on in their vote to approve the claims docket than they give their own auditors for use in supporting their opinion on the financial statements and this despite the fact that in Mississippi personal liability attaches to the Councilmen that approve illegal claims but this is how about 10 minutes of last night’s meeting was spent by the administration, bullshitting the council on why they cant get access to original City records. It was a pathetic display by Mayor’s new City Clerk. They all strongly appear to be hiding something(s) which I guess is why both OSA and DOJ Investigators are now at City Hall.
Towards the end of that part of the meeting I began broadcasting the first Public Comment Section of the night. It took on an Alice in Wonderland quality when a member of the public scolded the City Council for expecting to see original invoices. There is no doubt Joan Coleman is a strong supporter of Mayor Fillingame. It just would be nice if she possessed all the facts before chewing out the council or other members of the public (more on that in a bit). What I’ll do is embed the Video multiple times at different time sequences. I encourage everyone to feel free to watch all 19 plus minutes, which ended abruptly when some kinda of technical glitch kicked me off Periscope. First up the beginning with the last of the discussion on the council’s inability to access the original claims invoices for review prior to voting: Continue reading “Stonewall: Fillingame Administration refuses to separate co-mingled funds plus information withheld from the City Council”