Months after city council votes to block it, Mayor Keith Gaskin at a Wednesday press conference renewed his call for a forensic audit of city finances and pointed blame toward the council and the previous administration for the city’s ongoing financial crisis.
This sparked an argument between Gaskin and Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard over why Gaskin’s administration — despite now being in office eight months — hasn’t implemented better financial procedures at City Hall. Beard also questioned the mayor failing to provide financial statements to the council since December.
The argument centered around an April 2019 letter from accountant Mike Crowder, who had been brought in to consult the city in the aftermath of then-Chief Financial Officer Milton Rawle’s embezzlement of nearly $290,000. Subsequent audits by firm Watkins, Ward and Stafford found that recommended oversight measures and safeguards had either not been put in place at all or were not properly implemented.
Gaskin said the city has “issues far deeper than a cash flow report.” He charged that Crowder’s recommendations still are not in place and said a forensic audit, something the council has twice voted down, would help better identify and fix the problems.
“(Crowder) had strong recommendations of things that should happen, and he … suggested things that should have been put into place and were not,” Gaskin said Wednesday.
Beard, who was at the press conference, pushed back on that narrative.
“(You’re) constantly saying we didn’t do things correctly in the past,” Beard said. “Now we have a new administration and we’re still not doing any of those things called for in the previous administration. (Eight) months of your career would seem to be at fault because we have not fixed any of those issues.”
‘Financial chaos’
Crowder, at the end of his stint working with the city, wrote a letter to the mayor, city council, chief operations officer and city attorney.
Among other things, Crowder recommended hiring an outside CPA to review the CFO’s work and make sure the cash balance being reported is the correct one, especially in the general fund. He said one of the city’s major problems was that money was not being moved out of the general fund into other accounts, such as payroll, and that this was causing the general fund to look bigger than it actually is.
“… Some of the CFOs employed by the City of Columbus have inadequately reported the financial condition of the city in the past 14 years, resulting in financial chaos,” he wrote. “There was no excuse for this to have happened and certainly this should never happen again.”
Crowder also provided a flowchart explaining basic city accounting functions and how money should ideally be moved between the various accounts to avoid misleading figures.
Subsequent reports by auditors since then have noted few of those recommended measures have been put into place.
Thursday morning, Gaskin said that he has been trying to solve the city’s financial problems, even though he thinks those efforts are weakened by the lack of the forensic audit. City Hall was taking some steps towards putting recommendations from Crowder and Watkins, Ward and Stafford in place, but those largely stopped when former CFO Deliah Vaughn left in September. Since then, the city operated the CFO office with two volunteer interims — retired Columbus Light and Water CFO Mike Bernsen, who has since yielded the task to accountant Linda Holliman.
“Since September we’ve been relying on interim folks who had limited time up there,” Gaskin said. “… It’s not an easy process. It’s not going in there and correcting a few lines in a book. It’s very difficult to go back and make sure these accounts have been balanced properly.”
Gaskin said he had pressed for a forensic audit to get a better handle on both where the problems are and why the books are in the shape they’re in.
A forensic audit “would have cleared much of this up,” he said. “We can’t correct the problems if we don’t have a handle on our finances.”
Since December, the administration has halted generating financial reports and cash flow reports for the council to review. Vice Mayor Joseph Mickens questioned Gaskin on that point Tuesday, and the mayor said those reports would resume after a permanent CFO was hired.
Gaskin told The Dispatch on Thursday he did not intend to say there would be no more reports until a new CFO was in place, but he still contended it would be difficult for an interim to generate them.
“I am hesitant to have a volunteer CFO hand us a document that gives us an idea where we are financially when there is no way to know for sure,” he said. “I don’t even know if the numbers that (Vaughn) was given are correct.”
Gaskin said he wants to bring in outside accountants to work alongside the volunteer CFO to try to get at least some of the more difficult work done. Meanwhile, the city’s hiring committee is reviewing applications for a permanent CFO.
“I’m in conversation with some local accountants, who are in the middle of tax season, to give me an idea of how they can potentially help us move this forward and what it would cost,” Gaskin said. “I’m trying to find somebody that can help bring the chaos in that office under control, whatever that takes.”
Council: Best remedy is hiring new CFO
Mickens and Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones — both of whom were on the council during Crowder’s time as a consultant — pushed back on the idea that few of Crowder’s recommendations have been followed.
“A lot of stuff was put into place, as far as safeguards like having two people sign so one person can’t just transfer money,” Jones said. “To my knowledge (Vaughn) had started reconciling the books and working on those issues. She was doing her part.”
“Some of it did get followed up on,” Mickens said, agreeing that Vaughn was implementing “some” of Crowder’s recommendations before she left.
“All of it didn’t get worked on because I don’t know if the previous administration saw the urgency behind this,” Mickens said. “Maybe they didn’t see it.”
Both Mickens and Jones said they think the best remedy is hiring a CFO.
“My number one concern is to get a CFO and see what is going on,” Jones said. “That is past due, and we can’t move on until (a CFO) is in place.”
Mickens was more blunt.
“(Vaughn) has been gone now almost six months, and we haven’t moved in the direction we should have moved in,” he said. “The CFO should have been the first hire. Not the second, not the third, not the fourth. They should have been here by now.”
Gaskin said it is “absurd” to suggest the city was dragging its feet on hiring a CFO.
“It’s not easy to find a qualified applicant,” Gaskin said. “They’re not hanging out on every street corner. It takes time to pull a committee of six together who all have jobs and find a time when they can come together and talk about their top three choices.”
The hiring process is being handled by a committee made up of Gaskin, Human Resources Director Pat Mitchell, Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Taylor Stewart, Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene, Beard and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco.
“It’s taking way too long to get a CFO, and it’s frustrating,” Greene said. “The city is not being run efficiently right now, and I don’t have the data to make good decisions. There aren’t a lot of good options, but the city has got to function.”
Mickens said not bringing Bernsen in “under the right circumstances” was a missed opportunity.
“He’s a top-notch CFO,” he said. “He worked for Columbus Light and Water and for the city before that, and he knows the ins and outs. I think if we had brought him in under the right circumstances we’d be further down the road than we are right now.”
Mickens is not in favor of bringing in outside accountants, or at least not yet.
“I wouldn’t want to come in and have you tell me what’s here or there, I need to check that out myself,” he said. “Would you accept what somebody else said, or would you want to do it yourself?”
He said he would consider a further audit, or hiring consultants, if the CFO recommended that.
“If they say they need an audit I’m fine with it,” Mickens said. “But I want to hear what they’ve got to say and what direction they think we need to go in.”
Greene, who took office July 1 at the same time as Gaskin, figures it is time for the city to stop looking backward.
“We’re (eight) months into our term,” he said. “We can’t keep using the prior administration as an excuse.”
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