Wyandotte County officials used no-bid audits to weaken CFO. Commissioners are concerned
Kathleen VonAchen, Wyandotte County’s chief financial officer, felt like she had a good relationship with Mayor Tyrone Garner during the first few months of his administration.
They met twice after Garner was elected in November to discuss the county’s financial outlook.
But at one meeting in March, VonAchen advised Garner against a policy that would limit how much property tax the government could take in for the next year. VonAchen thought the tax cuts Garner sought were drastic and would severely harm the county’s operations.
Garner stopped meeting with her, she said in a phone interview.
Within months, a top Unified Government official announced that the county’s budget office was being removed from the finance department, which VonAchen oversees, effectively reducing her authority and the job responsibilities she has had since she was hired in 2016. VonAchen resigned.
As justification for that move, interim County Administrator Cheryl Harrison-Lee pointed to organizational audits that were conducted over the spring and presented to commissioners in July. Throughout his mayoral campaign, Garner said he would spearhead an audit of the Unified Government, contending that there needed to be an independent look at how the government worked.
But some commissioners raised concerns about the audits and how they were conducted.
Several were alarmed that the three auditing firms were contracted without the bidding process required by government policy. Some commissioners were skeptical after the final written reports that were submitted lacked the detail and nuance such audits usually show. One firm has yet to submit its written report, more than a month after it presented its findings.
Some commissioners wondered why the auditors did not interview them, which they believed was a normal part of the process.
“Overall, I’ve been disappointed in the level of detailed information provided to the commission and in the lack of commission involvement in the process,” said Commissioner Angela Markley, District 6.
“I believe these assessments and these firms were hand-picked,” said Commissioner Christian Ramirez, District 3.
Government finance experts reached by The Star said the way the budget office was moved away from the oversight of the finance department sounded “odd.”
“It doesn’t seem all that collaborative,” said Mike Mucha, the deputy executive director of the Government Finance Officers Association. “But at the same time, if they were trying to address an issue, then, maybe they weren’t looking for collaboration and input.”
Throughout his campaign, Garner said he would conduct “top-down” and “independent” audits of the Unified Government to identify cost savings for taxpayers.
Garner said he stands by the audits and the findings. But he is now calling them “soft audits” and said they were not meant to give a thorough look of the Unified Government.
“Just what we got on the surface was troubling to me,” Garner said. “And from that, we’ve got a lot of work to do in Wyandotte County to correct these things. I want to find solutions to problems. I want to find it, I want to face it and I want to fix it. Not me, but with a collaboration with this commission and with this community.”
Ashley Hand, a Unified Government spokeswoman, said Wyandotte County’s purchasing director reached out to multiple consultants and requested proposals. Harrison-Lee was hoping to have the audit findings presented to the commission in July — as commissioners were going through budget talks.
“But recognizing it was a tight turn around, there’s only going to be a select few that responded because not everybody was set up to respond that quickly, or necessarily can take on the scope of work in the amount of time that we were asking for,” Hand said.
Harrison-Lee also believes the audits were helpful.
“If I had to do it over again, I would still do this way,” Harrison-Lee said.
No-bid contracts for audits
According to the Unified Government’s purchasing policy, purchases between $5,001 to $50,000 require a minimum of three competitive quotes.
That did not happen in the case of the three audits obtained by Harrison-Lee.
In a phone interview with The Star, Harrison-Lee acknowledged that she did not put out any public bids for the audits. She said the Unified Government reached out to about 10 consulting firms to see which ones could conduct the three audits.
The Unified Government did not put any advertising announcements for the audits in The Wyandotte Echo, which is the publication used to put contracts out for public bids.
On March 23, the Unified Government signed contracts with the first two firms. Management Partners was paid $49,950.00 for its services. The Meriweather Group received $23,500.
Hand said both firms were picked because they had previously done work for the government. A few weeks later, The Robert Bobb Group submitted a proposal on April 5 and signed its contract for $45,000 on April 7.
The total cost for all three audits was $118,450.
Commissioners did not know the specifics of the audits and the process that it followed.
Markley, who has been on the commission since 2012, said it is difficult to call something an “audit” when it’s unclear if the firms were hired based on their qualifications.
“You need to do an RFP and that’s just typical of government,” Markley said. “It allows us to show that we’re being transparent, that we’re giving everybody that has the requisite skills that has the opportunity to perform a service…They may have been the best candidate had we done an RFP. It just doesn’t allow us to demonstrate our transparency when there wasn’t an RFP and a process followed.”
Added Ramirez, “We have to follow procedure...Completely, 100% it should have been through an RFP process.”
Findings presented to commissioners
When the Meriweather Group and Management Partners presented their findings during a July 14 commission meeting, commissioners did not receive a preliminary report beforehand.
The audits also did not come with the level of detail commissioners had been expecting.
At different times during Management Partners’ presentation, the employees who conducted the assessment said they hadn’t had a chance to validate their findings or to look more deeply into the areas they identified.
“We took a picture, someone needs to spend time to watch the whole movie,” one of Management Partners’ employees said.
The Meriweather Group delivered an 18-page report the day after the presentation. Management Partners did not deliver its report until Aug. 31 — almost two months after it presented its findings to commissioners. The report was 14 pages long.
Harrison-Lee said that the audits were meant to provide a “30,000-foot” view of the government.
“You look at your troubled areas and you identify those areas that we want to take a deeper dive on,” she said. “So now that I have the overall, high-level look, there are some areas that we need to take a deeper dive on. And so those are the areas where I envision we would issue an RFP and we would do a much more comprehensive, robust assessment.”
Markley said usually, auditors present their findings at commission meetings and then deliver a longer report that is typically hundreds of pages and has to be bound with a binder or folder.
“In this case, the reports that we’ve received actually seem to provide less information than the power points that we received during the meeting,” she said. “It wasn’t what I anticipated.”
In its contract, the Robert Bobb Group said it would deliver a preliminary findings report. Five minutes before the July 28 commission meeting, commissioners were given documentation — a printout of the power point slides.
As of Sept. 21, The Robert Bobb group has not delivered any other report.
Commissioners also were troubled that none of the firms interviewed the commissioners to get their input. At the July 28 commission meeting, Ramirez asked the Robert Bobb Group why they did not speak to commissioners as part of the assessment.
The consultant, Robert Bobb, president and CEO of the firm, admitted they should have.
“We should have done exactly what you are suggesting and that is to have individual interviews with each member of the commission,” the consultant said. “Were we to do this again, or if anyone else does it, your input, your perspective as elected officials is very important to the overall process.”
The two of the firms did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday about the scope of their work or concerns raised by commissioners. In a phone interview after the story published, Bobb said his firm was working on finalizing the final report and expected to deliver it Sept. 26.
“That lack of transparency has again raised the question ‘What were the audits for? Why did it take so long?’” said Commissioner Andrew Davis, District 8. “I don’t necessarily have the answers. I’m not assuming anything with it. But I am saying that I do wish that the reports were released, or at least finished when the presentations made.”
VonAchen’s last day is scheduled for Dec. 14. Since she announced her resignation, Katherine Carrtar, the economic development director, also resigned. Carrtar’s last day is Oct. 7.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 12:24 PM.
