EVERETT — A report from the state Auditor’s Office highlights a problem in the way the Everett City Council and mayor are reimbursed for travel and training expenses.
The city’s policy does not define meal periods, running the risk that elected officials might claim reimbursement for meals that are not eaten during specified travel periods. The resolution also does not set maximum allowed costs for meals.
The audit also identified specific examples where reimbursement requests did not show public benefit to the city.
The amount of money concerned was small, but the problems point to a policy that needs updating, said council Vice President Scott Murphy, who attended the exit conference for the audit.
The policy hadn’t been updated since 1998, Murphy said.
“I think it’s timely that we take a look at this and update it,” he said.
On Sept. 1, the Auditor’s Office issued a “management letter” to the city outlining the problems. It also cited specific questionable expenses, but did not name the council members in those incidents.
For example, there was an instance where one council member received reimbursement for two dinners on the same day, while attending a conference at which lunch was provided. The cost of the second dinner, taken at 10:17 p.m., was $40.25.
There were also three occurrences where a $10 per day lunch per diem was reimbursed at an event where the lunch was covered by the registration fee.
During a council member’s trip in March to Washington, D.C., the person received reimbursement for an additional night’s stay in a hotel after the conference had ended, at a cost of $285.11, plus a $48 per diem and $15.94 for parking.
City spokeswoman Meghan Pembroke said that any changes in the resolution that governs expenses for elected officials would have to be considered by the council, and that city staff were not preparing a recommendation.
Murphy said he’d told his colleagues on the council that he’d try to introduce an update to the policy within the next few months.
The problems with expenses were highlighted in a “management letter” from the Auditor’s Office, which is considered a warning of relatively minor concerns to the government agency in question.
A higher level of concern was indicated by a “findings” report issued Thursday in a different area of the city’s operations.
That report found that the city did not have adequate internal controls in place to ensure that federal money distributed through the Community Development Block Grant program was reported back to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by the required deadlines.
The problems stemmed from five grants in the 2013 and 2014 fiscal years totalling $597,100, for which the city was late in submitting its reports back to HUD.
According to the audit report, the city concurred with that finding and has since developed new data collection policies to prevent this from happening in the future.
Other recent audits have largely given the city positive marks with no deficiencies identified. Those areas where the city passed the audits were for its financial statements, in how its federally administered programs are operated, and how it reports wage and pension information to the state Department of Retirement Systems.
A separate management letter recently came out that highlighted concerns over the losses at the Everett Public Facility District.
The district almost broke even in 2014 in its operations of Xfinity Arena, but it continues to rely on subsidies from the city to pay its debts. In May, the city council agreed to loan the district $665,00 to buy a new scoreboard for the arena.
The Auditor’s Office’s sole responsibility is to report problems, and cannot assess penalties or otherwise enforce laws or policies, said Thomas Shapley, the office’s communications director.
“It’s up to the local government and ultimately the constituents of that local government to hold that leadership accountable,” Shapley said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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