On Tuesday night, by a vote of 4-2, the Columbus City Council voted not to hire a forensic auditor to examine the city’s finances.

The idea of a forensic audit first emerged this summer when state auditor Shad White, whose criminal investigation led to the conviction of former city CFO Milton Rawle for embezzling approximately $290,000 between 2016 and 2018, spoke to the Columbus Rotary Club. Deficit spending in both 2017 and 2018 has added to questions surrounding the city’s fiscal responsibility.

When he announced the embezzlement, White suggested that there could be more missing funds but that the $290,000 is all he could prove.

In some circles that was an open invitation to suspect the worst.

Within 24 hours of Tuesday’s council meeting, a Change.org petition entitled, “Citizens For A Forensic Audit of Columbus, Mississippi” was created by the ever-excitable Bob Raymond, who on the petition site wrote, “It is imperative that we clean the slate and find out where the money has been going.”

That’s an unfortunate choice of words for Raymond, who at the same council meeting faced the council over a derelict property case.

Predictably, charges of corruption and cover-ups abound after the council’s vote.

Suffice to say, cooler heads do not appear to be prevailing. The pitchfork-and-torch crowd has been assembled.

Mayor Keith Gaskin said after the meeting that he still favors a forensic audit and that he would  “continue to educate” the presumably poor old ignorant council about the merits of a forensic audit, whose benefits are far too complicated from the simpletons on the council to grasp at the present.

People just love to be “educated,” of course, so I’m sure the council will soon gather at the mayor’s feet to hear the mayor’s teachings. The mayor will be as successful teaching a housecat about personal space as he will be “educating” the council from here on out.

What should have been a reasoned debate has deteriorated into a hot mess, one that threatens to poison the mayor-council relationship just a few months into the administration. That should be a far greater worry than whether or not to have an audit.

There is a clear-eyed case to be made for a forensic audit. There is an equally clear-eyed case  to be made against it, too.

In the prevailing climate, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to hear those cases over all the shouting, which is unfortunate.

The best case for a forensic audit is to discover what went wrong and how it can be corrected, something that would improve the city’s credibility after the Rawle fiasco.

But we may already have an explanation for what happened.

In September, reporting by The Dispatch led to the discovery of a $1.5 million clerical error in the city’s proposed FY 2022 budget just 48 hours before the budget deadline. It turns out that the budget proposal showed income generated by the city’s Solid Waste program, but not the costs, which came in at $1,571,069. Interim chief operating officer Mark Alexander Jr. said the same error might have occurred in the 2021 budget. Since the discovery of that error, a closer inspection of prior year budgets has uncovered other potential questions.

If it happened in the 2021 budget and almost happened in the 2022 budget, it might have been happening for years, which might also go a long way in explaining those budget deficits in 2017 and 2018. I bet the city could figure that out with the help of a forensic auditor.

When Rawle’s malfeasance was discovered, the city made changes in how it paid its bills including, requiring two people to sign checks.

In the end, this all may prove to be a matter of sloppy bookkeeping and poor oversight.

You don’t need a forensic audit to correct those problems.

If the city’s financial failings were criminal in nature, it’s reasonable to assume the state auditor’s criminal investigation would have uncovered it. That’s what led to Rawle’s conviction, after all. I don’t suspect the state auditor investigators just got bored and quit. Do you?

If the city proceeds with a forensic audit that turns up nothing we don’t already know — a distinct possibility — and suggests solutions already in place — also a distinct possibility — it will be a questionable use of already limited tax dollars. We shouldn’t have to pay a forensic auditor to tell us to keep an eye on the ball.

I’m certainly not in favor of the city spending up to $275,000 just to satisfy wild-eyed, overheated, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

If you want to make an argument for or against a forensic audit, please put down the pitchforks first. Then we can have that discussion.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].