Fired city auditor’s proposal gets look

Denise Cardinal

Monday, April 20, 1998 | 10:03 a.m.

Five weeks after firing city auditor Susan Toohey -- partly because she insisted that an independent audit committee was necessary, sources say -- the city manager's office is discussing the need for just such a committee.

The committee would evaluate audit reports and offer advice and direction, but would not be answerable to either the City Council or city manager.

Toohey argued that such a committee is necessary in order for the auditor's reports to get a proper airing.

Sources at City Hall, including several department heads, say it was Toohey's plan to reorganize the whole audit division, instituting the independent committee as part of the reorganization.

Deputy City Manager Steve Houchens told the SUN today that the committee would be made up of two City Council members, the city manager and an appointed citizen. He said discussion of the committee is not a response to the controversy surrounding Toohey's firing. Rather, he said, the idea was born out of a recommendation made by Management Partners -- an independent auditing firm that recently examined the city's books and management procedures.

Toohey was fired from her $73,606-a-year job March 13 without public explanation. Director of Human Resources Rick Anderson said city policy prohibits public discussion of personnel issues.

"I'm glad to hear they're forming an audit committee," Toohey said today. "Those municipalities that are progressive have audit oversight committees. This ensures that management is responding properly to the auditor's findings and taking measures to become more efficient."

As an internal auditor, Toohey and the two employees in her department were responsible for examining the finances and production of city departments.

Under Toohey's proposed structure for the audit division, she and her division would no longer report to the city manager but to a board of citizens. This board, under Toohey's arrangement, would be the only authority for hiring and firing members of the audit division. Currently, the city manager has that authority, a situation that Toohey sees as a conflict.

Other auditors, such as those at Henderson and North Las Vegas, also report to the city manager, but can't be fired without a majority vote of the City Council.

According to her attorney, former City Councilman Matthew Callister, Toohey is considering suing the city for firing her. She points out, Callister said, that during her three years as auditor, she was given the maximum 8 percent merit raise both times she was evaluated.

The majority of changes Toohey recommended in the internal audits she conducted for the city were not accomplished, according to city documents, because they were deemed frivolous by city staff. Under her proposed structure, decisions on whether the auditor's recommendations were valid would be made by the independent board.

As part of her job, Toohey distributed internal memos to city staff. These were short of formal audits, but pinpointed situations she though needed attention. Among them were:

* Maintenance for the city's parks was more expensive than most western cities.

* The business licensing division was illegally confiscating property from businesses in violation of ordinances.

* A contract with a computer systems company was approved without a bid process or City Council approval.

Houchens said these internal memos were not audits in the traditional sense because they didn't leave the city manager's office. Under Toohey's proposed setup, these memos would have gone to the independent committee first, before being distributed to the affected city officials.