There are serious concerns in the Health and Human Services Audit report, but there is no corruption or fraud on the part of county employees.

Count me in as one of those people concerned with the findings in this audit. My concern led me to request a performance review of management and an independent legal investigation into many of these findings. After an exhaustive investigation that included the legal opinions of two independent attorneys I am convinced that there is no corruption in HHS and no fraud has taken place on the part of county employees.

Regaredless, any one finding in an audit is serious and must be fixed. In addition, management should know that if any of these findings are repeated in the same department it would be unacceptable.

A little history

A few years ago the county commission established an internal audit department to perform an independent audit of the county. I'd like to thank those commissioners and County Manager Haines for having the kind of foresight to know that no one is perfect and that we need help identifying our faults.

The process they created is the most transparent way for us to identify problems and provide guidance to management for solving them. The internal auditor is independent of county management and reports directly to the BOCC as our employee. This is the best way that we can ensure that findings are discussed and addressed. After all, we are engaged in this discussion right now as a result of it.

Where we go from here

It is important to me that we learn from this audit and make ourselves better. Our HHS department does great work in our community and we should never forget that they are tasked with difficult jobs and play a necessary and important role in strengthening the health of our community. They have also grown from around 10 employees at the turn of the century to over 50 today. This isn't an exucse, it is a reality that almost guarantees problems. This audit is meant to teach us how we can do an even better job and we need to look at it that way.

When I first learned of these findings I asked our county manager to address these findings with a comprehensive plan that explains each finding, and that gives us specific time frames within which each issue will be resolved. Many of his responses have been laid out in the report, but I want more then that. I have requested that we get management reports at every meeting regarding our progress until all issues have been fixed. After this time we will send our internal auditor back into the department to verify that all issues are worked out.

My intent with this action is to be totally transparent and to ensure that the public can be confident that we are spending tax dollars properly.

Let me reiterate that a repeat of these findings in this department would be unacceptable. I am glad that so far management has been more interested in solutions than excuses. I also want to make it clear that these internal audits are not meant to be punative and I will not take any personnel action for the sake of appearances. I am interested in solutions and action. It is my belief that our management, led by Mr. Haines, has a good plan and I am here to support him with what ever he needs.

Management asked for this type of process, to make Dona Ana County a better county. Well, now we know what we need to do in HHS in order for that to happen. My instruction is to get to work and solve these issues.