Audit office helps pay its own way in lean times

By Sam Skolnik

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Over the past two years, one Las Vegas Leisure Services Department worker stole 93 city-owned items and kept them, some with property tags still attached, in his house and at storage facilities.

In another case, the general manager of a city-owned golf club regularly persuaded course cashiers to accept his personal checks in return for cash from the till — until several of those checks, totaling thousands of dollars, bounced.

Twice a year, the Las Vegas city auditor’s office releases its Internal Control Review Activity Report. The latest report, released a month ago, tallied $40,013.91 lost to the city.

It’s a document with a long name and an even longer detailing of the thievery and other malfeasance city workers engage in, along with recommendations on how to prevent such abuses.

The report could be seen as a reminder of the importance of the auditor’s mission.

As the city faces a budget crisis years in the making — likely requiring significant cuts in most departments and services — it appears city leaders have decided to spare the auditor’s office, which is mainly responsible for making sure city programs are run efficiently and effectively.

With the urgent budgetary priorities of increasing revenues and decreasing costs in mind, City Hall honchos “are pretty much letting us go forward as is,” said City Auditor Radford Snelding. “With the function we’re trying to perform, they believe this is money well spent.”

Snelding’s office includes five other auditors and one support staffer, and has a budget of about $800,000. Those numbers haven’t changed much in recent years, he said.

Perhaps more important, he said, his office — which sometimes is seen as an adversary by city officials whose departments and actions come under scrutiny — has been given assurances by top brass that they understand the importance of auditors in improving efficiency throughout city government.

In the past few years, Snelding’s office has filed reports on the city’s Fire & Rescue Department bomb squad; on the Building and Safety Department’s permit division; and on the cost of cell phone use by city officials.

Councilman Larry Brown, who serves on the city’s Audit Committee, said he thought the council would like to keep the office intact, but that the weight of the budget crisis could result in some cuts. More will be known Dec. 3, he said, the date of the next big council meeting on the budget.

“I think the function of the audit has proven its worth to the city,” he said, in particular when corrupt employees have been found out and given the boot, and when programs have been made more efficient because of the office’s recommendations.

“The culture’s changing,” Brown said.

In addition to trying to improve efficiency, the auditor’s main responsibility is to expose fraud, waste and abuse, and to offer recommendations to curb future wrongdoing.

Almost all of the eight cases included in the auditor’s Sept. 17 report involved small-scale thefts from taxpayer-funded city programs or other violations of money-handling practices.

(The report will be detailed publicly during a meeting Thursday of the Audit Committee, which oversees the department’s work. The committee includes two members of the City Council and three others.)

The cases range in cost to the city from $55.91 to $25,900.

Snelding said his auditors work closely with Las Vegas City Marshals detectives, who often conduct the initial investigation.

In the case involving the Durango Hills Golf Club, whose operations are contracted to a private company, the general manager involved in the check cashing abuses was quickly fired after the city learned of the incidents, Snelding said.

According to the report, the general manager admitted he regularly had his staff cash his personal checks. From June 25 to Aug. 8 of last year, 14 checks from the manager, for $6,888.85, cleared the bank. Another six checks, totaling $4,450, bounced.

Regardless, it was an impermissible intermingling of city and personal money, with culpability not limited to the general manager but also extending to the clerks who enabled his behavior.

Snelding said he did not remember the manager’s name, or whether the man had been referred to prosecutors for criminal charges. The current club manager, Andrew Valainis, referred all questions to the city.

In the instance regarding the Leisure Services Department worker who stole 93 city-owned items, including audiovisual equipment, the man was a longtime city employee, Snelding said. He stole some of the items outright and fraudulently purchased others using a city cash card, according to the report.

The report found that lax security policies led to the ease with which the employee was able to steal the items over several years. He not only was fired, but was charged with burglary, embezzlement and possession of stolen property.

The report recommended tightening the security at equipment storage facilities and increased vigilance in following city guidelines regarding checkout and inventory procedures.