Posted on 01/15/2010 7:55:22 AM PST by clippedwing
I have become aware of a county program that is totally disfunctional and I want something done about it! This has to do with a county misappropriating federal funds. The county is Snohomish in Washington state.
Supposedly the feds leave it up to the local govt's to audit their own programs. Can someone help me find out what department I can contact to try to get some interest in my story (I won't share it here...yet).
Thanks for any help!!
The County should have a CPA firm that annually audits the County and its major federal programs. Sometimes they put their audit report on the County website. You could notify them.
Just checked the County website. It appears the audit is performed by the Washington State auditor - Brian Sonntag. All County financial records is public information, btw.
Just checked the County website. It appears the audit is performed by the Washington State auditor - Brian Sonntag. All County financial records is public information, btw.”
That is leaving the fox in charge of the hen house.
I did manage to get the complete 2009-2010 county budget document...all 1100 pages worth.
...it amazes me how many people are hired to manage some of the programs and how much they get paid seems way to high!
...and then there is all the miscellaneous funds for travel, food, mail, advertising, ...pfft!
Since everything in government is supposed to be a public record, anyone can audit the books. but if you believe there are improprieties, contact your State Auditor with your concerns. it is the charge of the State Auditor to go through the books of ALL commissions, councils, county because they receive public funds.
Ditto:
Most records are open to the public. First get a copy of your State FOIA and read it carefully. Set up a template and start firing off letters to the County. Keep care full records of all letters phone calls etc.
I’ve been trying to work on a similar issue that deals with medicaid money. I need to find out what reports the state needs to provide to the federal government. Trying to contact medicare folks directly was a cluster**** trying to get someone on the telephone.
Speaker phones helped a lot with the hold times.
It’s easy for me to get discouraged after so much garbage from people. I’ve been called a liar by a program director and then got some action from a federal level guy that proved my point. Did I atleast get an appology? (yeah right). Today I feel like I’m on a mission to be a thorn in the sides of people that I’m certain are using federal money for things that it was never intended...which screws the people that the funds were intended for. My proof: There are no funds where there should be. WHERE IS THE MONEY? We’re talking millions of federal dollars here!
As noted in the other comments, the State Auditor is the one that audits Snohomish County’s federal programs. They have a citizen hotline at the following page: https://www.sao.wa.gov/EN/Investigations/Hotline/Pages/default.aspx
Use it. At least there will be a record of your complaint.
Having worked in the auditing industry before, I need to tell you that not all federal programs are audited every year at every government. There is a process that auditors have to follow to pick the federal programs they are actually going to audit. See OMB Circular A-133 and its compliance supplement. Also see OMB Circular A-87.
And, in response to an earlier reply in this thread, having the state auditor do the audit is not leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse. Its not like the elected guy actually comes in and does the audit and interacts with the local government managers. There are teams of state auditor employees that do the actual legwork (and they never interact with the elected auditor). Having a CPA firm do the audit is riskier because they do not have statutory authority to audit these programs, although they are allowed to compete for the opportunity. Since CPA firms lack statutory authority they have to really concern themselves with satisfying their client (the government), whereas the state auditor has the constitutional and statutory authority to come back every year (whether the government wants them to or not). And the only “client” the auditor has to worry about satisfying is the taxpayers of Washington state.
Hope this helps.
Get the grant agreement, which the County Council must approve and is in their minutes and records, and then complain to the federal agency, with specific references to the grant agreement terms and the federal rules that have been violated. Copy the federal agency's inspector general with the information as well.
Your fist concrete step is to use the County Council's website search function in the upper right of this web page. Enter the search terms "grant agreement" and the name of the program you are concerned about. You can research Code of Federal Regulations citations referred to in the grant agreement here.
Good hunting.
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