Members of Augusta’s Charter Review Committee considered a rigorous audit policy and strong-mayor form of government among options for the new charter Thursday.
Meeting for a sixth time, the committee broke into subcommittees on finance and forms of government in the afternoon after morning talk about ways to garner public input on the charter review. Public hearings are tentatively set for early July and the committee will soon launch a survey for the public.
Lee Powell, chairman of the finance subcommittee, brought a copy of a six-page auditing policy to the meeting. He told The Augusta Press that Augusta would be different now had it adopted such a policy five years ago.
While several on the Augusta Commission have routinely pushed to conduct in-depth audits, the commission has largely resisted the effort until recently, when it approved audits of the Recreation and Parks and Housing and Community Development departments, both in conjunction with the department leaders’ resignations amid scandal.
Over the last few years Augusta has had to pay more than $2 million in IRS fines for reporting failures, taken two mayors to task for their credit card spending, had to refund a $6.5 million grant plus interest and penalties and sent one commissioner to prison for deleting records of sales tax spending. But despite the issues, the city’s annual financial audits come back clean and win awards every year.
The office of internal audit
The document Powell brought calls for the creation of an office of internal audit headed by a certified accountant or auditor with a college degree and experience in auditing. The auditor is completely independent and nonpartisan and has authority to conduct audits of all departments, boards, activities, agencies, programs, contractors and others for compliance with all manner of standards. The auditor reports to an audit oversight committee comprised of five individuals with auditing, accounting or related experience.
Interim General Counsel Jim Plunkett, who is serving as parliamentarian as well as advising the charter committee, outlined the various financial components of the local government, from its eight-member Board of Assessors to the role of the tax commissioner to collect taxes while suggesting the group focus on the larger picture.
A critic, former Commissioner Moses Todd, addressed the group, saying they sounded more like a grand jury conducting an investigation than a charter committee developing “guardrails” for city finances.
Forms of government
The form of government subcommittee began by adopting a mission statement drafted by Chairman Steve Foushee that named goals of improving efficiency; and public communication; eliminating waste, fraud and abuse and improving infrastructure.
Foushee presented a diagram of how he believed Augusta’s government should look, with a mayor with veto power at the top. Under the mayor are a manager and the mayor pro tem. Under the manager, who also reports to the mayor pro tem, are city department heads while under the mayor pro tem are 10 commissioners.
The model is different than Augusta’s current government, with an administrator and department heads who report to the commission and a mayor whose direct reports include only his staff.
Foushee remarked that four Augusta mayors who gathered on a recent conservative talk radio show “indicated great difficulty working within the existing charter.” Subcommittee Vice Chair Lonnie Wimberly said Augusta mayors were “supposed to be just citizens” in the charter review process.
Subcommittee member Sheffie Robinson said she hoped the firm hired to facilitate the process will provide information to the committee about government forms that work from outside Georgia and that are not the same size as Augusta.
The five-member subcommittee then voted to invite Administrator Tameka Allen for an in-depth interview about her preferred forms of government.
New member Clint Bryant
The charter committee had one new member Thursday in Clint Bryant, the retired former Augusta University athletics director. Bryant replaces Marvin Cole, who resigned for health reasons.
Bryant said he is “very excited” to join the committee, “to take a deep dive into how the government works” and “see what we can do to make Augusta a better place.”
