Palm Beach County beefs up auditing efforts

By at 9 March, 2010, 8:32 pm

Years of scandal convinced the Palm Beach County Commission Tuesday to beef up the county’s internal auditing. The proposed changes give the county’s internal auditor more responsibility for monitoring and reporting on county operations and management. They reinforce policies giving the internal auditor independence from the county administrator. Also, audit reports will now be posted on the county’s website. In addition, the county’s audit committee would be made up of five representatives from the private sector appointed by the County commission, instead of the past practice of choosing representatives of the departments the audit committee oversees. This comes in addition to the county creating a new independently appointed Ethics Commission and the plans to

hire an inspector general to serve as a fulltime watchdog over county government. The overlap expected between the county’s internal auditing efforts and the work of the new Ethics Commission and inspector general auditor “won’t hurt anything,” said David Baker, who led a coalition of community groups pushing for the county to adopt new ethics measures. The push for reform comes in the wake of three county commissioners going to prison since 2006 amid a federal corruption investigation. The commission on Tuesday gave initial approval to the auditing changes. The proposals go back before the commission March 23.

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Palm Beach County beefs up auditing efforts

Categories : West Palm Beach




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