State Auditor Tom Schweich gave Brentwood a ‘poor’ rating and a long list of operations to improve when he presented his audit of the city in May.
When he returned to the Brentwood Rec Center on Tuesday to give his follow-up report, it was a complete turn-around.
“There was tangible progress in almost every area that we looked into, and you should be happy about that,” Schweich said in the meeting. “I do think that the city is committed to improvement.”
Schweich said Brentwood had implemented about 98 percent of his recommendations. The only thing the city chose not to implement is opening up city legal services to competition. He said it’s a good idea but not required by law.
Brentwood Mayor Pat Kelly said the city was already working on improving things before the first report from the state auditor.
“Really, it’s been going on since Bola (Akande) took the reigns as city administrator,” he said after the meeting.
He said the deficiencies were an example of growing pains.
“You get to a point where people are working to get the job done, and may not be implementing the things that are best practices, because they just don’t have time to do it,” Kelly said.
“So this was time for the city to take a breath, and say OK, we’re at this point now, but how do we go back, so we’re really using our best practices and moving forward as a community?” he said. “I don’t think anybody did anything wrong over those years, they were just trying to run the city as best they could.”
From the report, Schweich listed Professional services as ‘partially implemented’ and Personnel policies as ‘in progress.’ The rest of the items he listed as “Implemented:”
- Bids
- Late Fees
- Credit Cards
- Fire department overtime and timesheets
- Building official
- Timesheets
- Employee leave and compensatory time
- Additional compensation
- Litigation
- Meeting minutes
- Segregation of duties
- Receipting and depositing
- Fuel and vehicle use
- Bank reconciliations
mmjones, the city can file on its bonds (insurance) that is required by state law and recover hundreds of thousands of dollars, but our city officials are afraid to do that. The state audit provided the support for the bond claim. The State Audit cited violations of 4 city ordinances, 7 state statutes, 1 state constitutional article, and 2 instances of the federal labor law, annually costing over $80,000 per year. It does not cost to file the claim, I already put together the documents. Tell me mm, why won’t the city file a claim to recover these funds?
And the Auditor’s office announced Friday that a presentation of the follow-up of the audit would be the following Tuesday, no time to get the message out.
Lynn…Sorry you are so upset with my comments. One of my issues as I said, was with Alderperson Saunders picking and choosing what the public hears. If she is going to drag the city threw the news with all the negative issues, she needs to do the same with the positive steps the city has taken. I am proud of the fact that the city has made a turn around and implimented the recomendations of the state auditor. Why would you not want to brag about the progress that you are apart of? Previous posts have mentioned a forensic audit. If the state audit cost the city (residents) $70-$80,000 for just one year, what do you think a forensic audit would cost? We have to be smart about this, if the city chose to do a forensic audit, and found nothing, we the residents could be out possibly as much as $160,000 plus. Given the state audit stated there was a lot of missing documentation, what could we hope to accomplish? I don’t believe throwing more money at past mistakes is the answer. Moving forward using the recomendations of the state and staying involved with our elected representatives is the most cost effective. Lynn, if you don’t like it, I DO CARE!
OK, I’ll say it. I’d like a pound of flesh from the clowns who have run Brentwood for years and screwed it up and treated anyone who dared question things like a nut case a 2nd class citizen or an idiot.
Seemayer has given about 1/10th of a pound in my opinion. Probation, a pension, allowed to collect on “unused vacation days” to pay back what he has stolen, come on.
The mayor and aldermen, ex-fire chief what have they given as punishment for what has occurred during their watch? Nothing. Yea its great that the town has been drug kicking and screaming into compliance by a handful of citizens and a new aldermen, the state auditor. I still want a pound of flesh from the pols. If you think this makes me a bad person guess what? I don’t care!
Maureen LISTENS and gives orientation to the facts. Someone on another post called those who repeatedly re-elect ‘incompetents’ as low information voters. Maureen Saunders is a most powerful spokesman for the residents and I hope she continues to ‘bright-light’ the deficits in both financial management and policy adherence. She asks excellent questions for which WE receive no responses–and is in the cross-hairs of people unconcerned with proper global administrative functions.
dear mmjones, you should really try to dig deeper to decide if things are really fixed. Read the cover of our most recent audit by the folks that audit us every year. If you really believe things are better than congrats on burying your head in the sand. Our leaders got away with breaking laws, letting tens of thousands of dollars be misappropriated and not even following the city code. In most cases if you mismanage a company you are fired. Because of nice people like you, you will vote for the ones that mismanaged in the past and get rid of the person who deserves credit for fixing. I have trouble following your logic, then again most people never learn from their mistakes. Your e-mail was nothing short of shocking to think that as a fellow citizens you want to go back to the past mismanagement. Wow, our city really does have problems. The biggest danger is an uneducated voter.
Spot on comment, Lynn.
These bonds do not cover criminal activities, they guarantee performance according to the state and city laws, the violations the state auditor listed. Criminal activity is not covered by the bonds. The bond company said I could file, and when I filed, they said I needed authority from the city after they received my claim and supporting documentation. WHY WON’T THE CITY FILE, THE AUDITOR DID ALL OF THE RESEARCH OF THE VIOLATIONS AND THE FINANCIAL IMPACT TO THE CITY? THERE WOULD BE NO HARM IN FILING, ONLY FINANCIAL RECOVERY OF LOST FUNDS.
[…] Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich’s follow-up report on Tuesday at the Brentwood Recreation Center, he said Brentwood had implemented 98 percent of the recommendations from his audit of the […]
Our elected officials can file a claim on the bond, someone in the administration did not faithully perform their job according to the law, city administrator, mayor, board? These are descriptions of the type of bond the state requires to protect the city and citizens from these exact misdeeds.
BONDSEXPRESS Surety and Insurance Agency
FAITHFUL PERFORMANCE BOND: A type of bond where the coverage goes beyond protection against loss due to dishonesty or fraudulent acts of the principal; it provides protection to the named insured against loss by reason of the failure of the persons covered hereunder to faithfully perform their duties as prescribed by law or by the constitution and bylaws of the insured or their equivalent.
Alpha Surety & Insurance Brokerage, LLC
Faithful Performance Surety Bond
A Faithful Performance Surety Bond is a general term used to describe bonds in the surety industry. Surety bonds typically protect against dishonest or fraudulent acts of the principal. A faithful performance surety bond goes beyond this and protects the insured party against the principal not faithfully performing their duties as prescribed by law, the constitution or the bylaws of the insured. In other words, the coverage is much broader than a standard surety bond.
IRMI
faithful performance coverage
Responds to crime policy losses arising out of the failure of an individual to faithfully execute duties required by company bylaws or those prescribed by law as in the case of a public official or employee. Although this coverage may be required occasionally in the private sector, the majority of the time it is written for public entities.
Jim, your description of the application for a bond is excellent. This causes me to wonder why the administration disallowed you from filing on the insurance bond, and failed to do so themselves. This is exactly what a ‘good ole boys’ administration looks like. I am still keen on a forensic audit on both fiscal management and policy adherence. I am not personally looking to unseat ANYONE, unless they obstruct the transparency of our City’s Admin. process. Yet issue after issue provides that there is a serious lack of transparency and credibility. I don’t care if Pat stays Mayor: but let’s see all the information so we can make informed decisions.
For the last two years all I have heard from Alderperson Saunders is all the problems with the City of Brentwood. In the paper, on the radio and on the TV. She initiated the audit petition to force the state to do an audit. While Brentwood did poor in the audit for the year 2011, the mayor stated that they had made many changes before the audit started and continued after the audit was completed. Now for the first time in two years since all this started, the follow up meeting with the State Auditor was on Tuesday. The auditor stated that 98% of the recommendations had been implemented. This was great news for the City of Brentwood!! Alderperson Saunders knew about this for a couple of weeks prior to Tuesday’s meeting. Instead of rallying her supporters via email, door notices, and phone calls like she has done so many times before to show how bad Brentwood is, she played politics and didn’t spread the positive news to her constituents!! For that I will not be voting for her next time. Also, while I am not a lawyer, the only “Criminal” activity that I heard was found was that of Mr. Seemayer, and I believe the courts handled that. While there were other violations found in the audit, they were not “Criminal”, as stated by the auditor. Again, I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that a “Criminal” act is needed to file against a bond. Bad management is not criminal!! While I believe mistakes have been made in the past, I believe the State Auditor has shown that Brentwood has cleaned up its act. It’s time to move forward and start governing again.
Agree. Not worth Alderwoman Saunders time unless its going to bring down the Mayor or “opposing” aldermen.
This is such an unfair statement. Alderman Saunders has repeatedly been shot down when she brings financial figures and procedural elements into the meetings. If anything shoots the Mayor down, it should be objective information, as Ald. S. supplies. What ever happened to “the buck stops here”? In the absence of a forensic audit of both fiscal and policy compliance matters, we don’t really know where we are. The audit was good, but what might additional, more detailed information on the money and the process yield?
it appears to me that the auditor’s office is a completely useless position. Not a single official even got a slap on the wrist for breaking the law. If I am in office I just learned that I can do whatever I want and the state auditor can’t touch me. Public Officials 1 Citizens of Brentwood 0 The standards for public officials has fallen to a new low in Brentwood. Our leaders will not change a thing, why should they, there are no consequences for their actions, no matter how unlawful or unethical. As citizens if we break laws we get arrested. How can the state auditor not even sigh over the fact that Brentwood tax monies are sent through a bank where the Mayor is a senior officer. Even a high school accounting student knows this is a conflict of interest. The audit was a complete waste of money, not to mention for the folks who spearheaded the getting the audit for Brentwood. One can only imagine how deflating this must feel knowing that all that hard work and effort was put into the hands of a state auditor that is powerless.
In the absence of a complete forensic audit, Brentwood needs only to correct what the auditor cited. Who knows what else is kept from the Citizens? To that extent, I completely agree Alethiea.
Obviously none of this is the Mayor or Alderman’s fault, why would we ever blame them, they were helpless bystanders as the employees who work for them steal, use city credit cards to avoid sales tax, receive bonuses against state laws, wrongly take health benefits and not follow city ordinances to do inventory. These poor elected officials, so cruel of the citizens to actually hold them accountable. I am so sad for these poor folks. We should give them all raises to make them feel better. I can’t believe people who vote in Brentwood still think these people are competent.
Lynn, I’m ‘feelin’ their pain’ too…
Bill, don’t blame Maureen, if Seemayer was a better gambler, none of this would have happened (or been discovered). This would all still be happening: the mayor and some aldermen would still be getting healthcare at a cost of $28,000 per year, employee perfect attendance program at $21,000 per year, admin fees given to some employees at cost of $22,000 per year, funds given to charity per golf tournament at cost of $10,000 per year for last 3 years, firemen overtime at annual cost of ?, employees’ personal use of city credit cards at cost of ?. So for 3 years at least $240,000 and for 4 years $320,000, seems like a no-brainer for filing on officials’ bonds to recover these funds! The Mo State Auditor said were all violations of state and city laws/ordinances. Best practices seems to be filing on the bond to recover these funds, Mo State Auditor’s Office did all of the investigation.
I agree Jim. This is a piece-meal approach to a “snapshot” audit. We need the long view of a forensic audit on both fiscal and policy adherence to not be duped. I think Ald. Saunders would be a very good Mayor, or oversight comptroller. btw, Jim i really appreciate your posts and what you say at meetings as viewed on U-Tube.
Now that this has passed, I wonder what Maureen is going to try to stir up next
Maureen brings facts to the public. If anything is ‘stirred up’, it is legally documented, or it would not be entered into the record. Why the lack of tranparency? Why not take a long view of how Brentwood got into this shape in the first place? I believe the admin. system is (and has been) broken and Ald. S. shines a factual light on that. Why bludgeon her for facts documented in black and white?