Citizen questions county audit process

Dear Editor,

Lest some citizens derive too much comfort from the recent article, "County audit in process [Aug. 9]," I caution them that those checks do not include a process audit to identify duplicate payments such as those made for the design of Cosby High School. Neither is KPMG's audit designed to identify such failures as neglecting to follow state procurement law and the Public-Private Education Act requirements.

Awarding multimillion dollar contracts without considering price will not be identified as a problem-neither will choosing school locations that cannot be justified based on the available data. Using a patently unfair process (and I don't mean the PPEA) to choose the contractor for a project exceeding $100 million will not be challenged. Paying exorbitant prices for land to build schools on (some of it unusable) will not be reported as a problem. Making spending decisions involving millions in public funds without documenting them is apparently no problem at the local level.

Why is it not mandated that the public be able to determine from written documentation why a certain contractor was chosen when its price was higher by $6 million, why a certain school location was selected when the records show other sites are better, or why there is no record of site evaluations being done?

Why is there no record of the official who contracted with Dominion Aviation for the $18,000 charter flight for [County Administrator Lane] Ramsey's return from Kansas late last year when Dominion did not even have an airplane available? Mr. Ramsey returned the money, but who contracted for the flight? What kind of "First Choice" system does not identify the official who contracts to spend the taxpayer's money?

Productivity is fine, but when Chesterfield's audit department fails to examine the process used to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in school construction and renovation over the last 10 years, I'd say we could do with less productivity and more effectiveness. I am amazed at the deficiencies in the risk analysis process used by our county's Internal Audit Department. What else could explain the lack of oversight of such a high-risk area since 1996? We can, however, take comfort in knowing that the school club funds are accounted for. Remember that when you get your real estate tax bill for 2007 and see an increase likely to be twice the size of the one for 2006. Two or three pennies off the rate won't help much.

Brenda Stewart

Chesterfield