Goodman to get results of city audit

Sito Negron

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

The Las Vegas city audit of work performed by assemblymen who worked for the Neighborhood Services Department while they were in the 2001 Legislature is coming to a close. Mayor Oscar Goodman was expected to receive a copy over the weekend for a possible Monday release.

Meanwhile, City Auditor Radford Snelding has been speaking with people who were working to promote the city of Las Vegas during the 2001 Legislature, including former City Manager Virginia Valentine and Dan Musgrove, a former city lobbyist. Both now work for Clark County.

"We're coming down to the end," Snelding said Thursday. He consistently has declined to comment about the contents of the audit.

The audit was intended to examine the time assemblymen Wendell Williams and Morse Arberry claimed to be working for the city during the 2001 Legislature, and the oversight by Sharon Segerblom, their boss and the director of the Neighborhood Services Department.

Segerblom and Williams are on leave pending the results of the investigation. Arberry no longer works for the city. All have declined to speak or could not be reached for comment.

Williams has said that he performed work for the city during the 2001 Legislature that lobbyists were unable to complete, but he would not be specific.

Musgrove, who spoke with Snelding on Thursday, said he "wasn't aware of anything (Williams) worked on that we didn't talk to other legislators about. As far as we were concerned, members of the lobby team I worked with, we treated Mr. Williams as (we did) other legislators.

"There wasn't anything I was aware of that I wouldn't have asked another legislator to do," Musgrove said.

Valentine was to meet with Snelding today.

"I have been contacted and plan to cooperate with him fully," she said.

The city auditor began the report almost a month ago, following a review performed by Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell, Segerblom's supervisor. Her review dealt with Williams' allegations that he was forced to change his 2003 time cards -- for which he ended up agreeing to pay the city back $6,700 -- because of pressure from his bosses.

The report said that was not so, and that Williams and Segerblom did not follow procedure about noting leave and sick time. The report led to the second review, of the 2001 work records.

Williams billed the city for 527.5 hours of work time between Feb. 3 and June 23, 2001, a period when the Legislature would be meeting. In addition, he billed 208.25 hours of sick time, 112.25 hours of vacation time, and 32 hours of holiday time in that period. He received $32,014 at an hourly rate of $38.36.

Arberry put in for 1,040 hours of city pay in 2001, including 190 hours of sick time, in a similar time frame.

Mayor Oscar Goodman was not available for comment Thursday. When asked how long Goodman would review the auditor's report before discussing it publicly, city spokesman David Riggleman said Goodman "wants to report to be thorough, rather than quick."