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City Auditor Doud Already Has Authority To Conduct "Performance Audits." She Said So And Her Office Has Done So.


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(Oct. 16, 2015, 8:55 a.m.) -- LB voters have been exposed to an echo-chamber of statements from the Garcia-Doud political committee, plus City of Long Beach taxpayer-funded funded "informational" mailers, plus the City Attorney-written/City Council approved ballot description plus an out-of-town advocacy entity "CA Common Cause," all variously reciting that Charter Amendment AAA will authorize the City Auditor to conduct performance audits.

But City Auditor Doud's office already conducts performance audits. She said so publicly at the June 12 Joint Charter Amendment Committee/City Council meeting in reading a robotic written statement that also applauded the other Garcia-sought ballot measures. City Auditor Doud stated:

City Auditor Doud: I am also asking for your support to affirm the current practice of our office to conduct performance audits by updating the obsolete Charter language that is always 110 years old...This amendment won't change our current practice of conducting performance audits, but I believe it is essential that this authority be explicitly spelled out in the Charter to ensure that this important oversight role is clearly established. In conjunction with conducting performance audits, it is equally important to have clear and explicit language that the City Auditor have access to all city records deemed necessary to conduct these audits unless such access is prohibited by law. (emphasis added)

In other words, the "change" isn't a change. The Auditor's office already does what the measure proposes to do.

[Scroll down for further.]

The most recent example is the high visibility performance audit regarding LB Animal Care Services. At right is its title page, which lists four current taxpayer-paid performance auditors on the City Auditor's staff. The document includes the following explicit statement: "We conducted this performance audit in accordance with Generally Accepted Government Accounting Standards (GAGAS)." [Source: "Animal Care Services Review, Phase Two, p. 20.]

Incumbent Doud didn't cite a single example of any City of LB office or agency preventing her from conducting performance audits. She acknowledged that the Charter Amendment seeks authority to do what her office already does.

The "change" the measure seeks isn't just legally redundant. The Charter Amendment is substantively fake.

One of the basic journalistic W's is "why." So...why was fake Auditor authority measure bundled with the other Garcia-sought measures?

Further to follow on LBREPORT.com.

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