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There's an obvious conflict of interest going on in Mecklenburg County government, and commissioners should make it a priority to fix it.
The county's Audit Review Committee is tasked with overseeing independent audits of the county and responding to their findings by making recommendations to the full board of commissioners. In carrying out this role, it's not uncommon for the committee to need to review the performance of top county administrators, including the county manager.
Here's where the conflict arises: The committee is made up of two county commissioners, one community member and two members of the county management staff. In other words, the top brass is largely responsible for determining how county management has performed when its performance is in question.
It's evident such an arrangement poses a conflict. Even if the members of county management were to have the best of intentions, the arrangement undercuts the committee's credibility. The public can't feel confident that an independent review has been done.
Most recently, the committee reviewed misspending at the Department of Social Services and management's response to the problems there. Recent financial audits revealed the county cannot account for $162,000 meant to buy Christmas gifts for poor children. Commissioners have said they may never know just how much money is missing or what happened to it.
DSS hadn't been fully audited in 13 years. As county manager, Harry Jones said he deserves to be held accountable.
But Jones himself is on the Audit Review Committee, along with one of his top assistants, John McGillicuddy. The committee's report to commissioners last week agreed with an outside auditor's finding that Jones and his team had acted appropriately in responding to problems at DSS. The primary author of that report? McGillicuddy himself, with the support of Jones, to whom he reports.
Whether management's response was adequate or inadequate, the public's faith in the legitimacy and comprehensiveness of the report should be shaky. As when a police officer is investigated for killing a civilian, the only review that has credibility is a truly independent one.
Supporters of the committee's makeup say it allows management to provide commissioners with useful information. But clearly they can provide that same information without sitting in judgment of it.
We applaud Democrat Harold Cogdell and Republican Bill James for questioning how the committee was designed. Now the full board should vote to have it include four commissioners, two from each party, and one community member – and not have management review itself.
