Editorial: Yearly audits needed for public funds

Monday, July 26, 2004 | 8:44 a.m.

The city of Las Vegas last year finally caught up with one of its planning department employees who had been regularly pilfering money from a petty cash fund since 1999. The discovery revealed something important about the employee, who had always performed her job well and had earned the respect of her colleagues. She stole the money -- more than $10,000 -- to augment her personally ruinous gambling budget.

The discovery also revealed something important about the city. It does not perform annual audits of its departments. That's why the employee's thefts went undiscovered for so long. Because the auditing department is so understaffed, the best that can be hoped for is that a city department will be audited once every five years. Many departments, those that handle less money, are only audited once every seven years, and many more departments are audited only once every 15 years.

Councilman Larry Brown, a member of the city's Audit Oversight Committee, acknowledges the problem. "What is holding us back on this function is a lack of resources," Brown said. The councilman supports an auditing budget that would guarantee the examination of every city fund at least once every five years. "We have to raise the priority status of the auditing staff -- we have to have more staff in this area," Brown said. Over the last year, the city created more than 50 new positions, but none in the six-person auditor's office, Brown said. The city has about 180 separate funds and more than 2,600 employees.

Brown is on the right track but we would go much further. Taxpayer money needs far greater protection than that afforded by one audit every five years. Employees who handle large amounts of money may work just three or four years and quit, leaving for parts unknown. There should be money in the city's budget for annual audits of all departments. Employees who handle public money should never be allowed to think, for a moment, that there will be no oversight for years. Human temptation being what it is, particularly in a city with as many temptations as Las Vegas, five-year auditing cycles (not to mention seven- and 15-year cycles!) simply invite thievery.

The planning department employee was fired from her $84,000-a-year-job, charged with theft, convicted and sentenced to pay restitution and serve two years on probation. Bankruptcy Court followed, as did a desperate search for work. On a hopeful note, she sought treatment at the nonprofit Problem Gambling Center on West Sahara Avenue. Had she been caught much sooner, things might have gone better for her. Certainly the public would have benefited.