These are the audits? Just dust and smoke.

So Mike Conners now tells us he answered the FOIL request for his audits.

What he delivered was a box of papers. But the FOIL request was for a list of audits. Just a simple list so County resources would not be needlessly dedicated to pulling files that are not important. Hell, if he were organized he could have produced a list in 10 minutes. But no, he had staff plowing through the County archives.

He is obscuring the fact that he has no list of audits, and has not completed audits for basic County processes in years, if ever. Piles of boxes that took the Comptroller over a month to find and retrieve from the County's Hall of Records is a typical delay tactic--bury what was asked for in materials that were not needed.

Dust and smoke.

What has Mike Conners done and not done - Part 1 - Audits

Done right, most of a Comptroller does is quiet attention to detail. It is plowing carefully through documents, making sure the numbers are properly entered and that they add up accurately. It requires patience.

What are the key parts of the job? Auditing, accounting, and approving expenditures. How has Mike Conners done each? Start with auditing.

Auditing?

When he first ran for Comptroller, Mike Conners promised regular audits of county departments. Now he can’t even produce a list of audits, much less the audits themselves. What’s the record show?

• Albany was frozen out of the Small Cities Community Development Block Grant until HUD received delinquent yearly audits of federal funding it received in 1999 and 2000. (Schenectady Gazette, October 3, 2002).


• In 1997, Conners failed to provide the required audit to the New York State Department of Transportation. He even failed to respond to inquiries from the Department of Transportation.


• In 1999, Conners failed to provide the required audit to the New York State Office of Mental Health.


• In 1999, Conners failed to provide the required audit to the New York State Department of Health.


• In 1999, Conners failed to provide the audit required by the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.


• When Conners did look at the Albany County Nursing Home and criticized the County Executive for his oversight, John Jay Feeney, a financial consultant found that Conners' audit did not conform to standard auditing procedures (Gazette, March, 2002) and did not follow established professional standards to ensure accuracy (Times-Union, March 2002)

Has Conners ever audited any of these?

• Community college tuition ($7,800,000 this year)
  


• Spending by elected officials like the Sheriff ($14,794,915), or the Sheriff's Correctional Facility ($38,471,753) or the the DA ($5,732,720) or the County Clerk?


• The Civic Center? He did want to sell it, even at a loss back in 1994 (Times-Union, 8/23/1994 and 9/5/1994). Now that's it's making money, where is he?

If he has audited these programs, where are the results?

Mike Conners can't seem to find his old audits. How about any recent ones? Can he give anyone a copy of an audit that meets professional standards that he's done in the past year?