City of St. Augustine Lacks Basic Internal Controls, Needs Inspector General and Ombuds

When will they ever learn? Thanks to City of St. Augustine, Florida Audit Committee Chair Todd David Neville, C.P.A., for asking questions and demanding answers about dozens of accounting errors in City books, only 19 of 33 of which were caught by the City's 30-year auditing firm, MASTERS, SMITH and WISBY.

Thanks to Mr. Neville for confronting the incompetent bad-ole-boys, like TIMOTHY ALAN BURCHFIELD, C.P.A., unjust stewards and cognitive misers who have ill-served the City of St. Augustine for years. It's time for BURCHFIELD to go. https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2019/04/city-of-st-augustine-lacks-basic.html

Read former Mayor George R. Gardner's column, below and watch the audit report on Monday, April 22, 2019.

Here's former Mayor George Gardner's St. Augustine Report:

Audit committee seeks correction-free reports "An organization the size of the City should be able to close its books in a timely and accurate manner." Says the chair of the city's Audit Committee, former City Commissioner Todd Neville. He'll report to commissioners Monday that while auditors Masters, Smith & Wisby found the 2017-18 audit of city finances are "in conformity with accounting principles," they "proposed 33 adjustments of which 19 were identified by City staff," says Neville. "Although not all entries were material to the financial statements, the City's internal controls failed to find and correct basic accounting errors. "Ultimately, we concluded the finding was a result of lack of adequate management oversight," says Neville. "We recommend management determine a performance plan for the Finance Department that outlines specific goals and accountability measures to eliminate this finding. "Our goal as an Audit Committee is to have an audit with no adjustments and no findings."

Our City of St. Augustine Audit Committee Chair TODD DAVID NEVILLE is right.

The City of St. Augustine lacks basic internal controls.

I've been saying this for years.  The City needs to listen to Mr. Neville, instead of attempting to remove him from his position in retaliation for his right to engage in federally protected activity under the First and Ninth Amendments and Sarbanes-Oxley Act.   We need an Inspector General and Ombuds for every government in our county.

The City has had the same audit firm for some 30 years, a breach of the standard of care.
That firm applied to be auditor for Mosquito Control, and its firm resume showed the only government audit it does is the City of St. Augustine; its other customers are car dealers.

(The City of St. Augustine Beach rightly changed auditors after only five years, and former SAB Mayor Sherman Gary Snodgrass, a former electric utility executive, agreed with me that this is only prudent. )

It is a badge of fraud that not only did certain other-directed City Commissioners attack, block and mock reform Mayor Nancy Shaver's sincere efforts to have high-priced, no-bid 450th contracts audited, but sandbagged all of her efforts to introduce fiscal prudence.

No wonder Mayor Nancy Shaver suffered a stroke, in the face of mendacity and meanness from vituperative vicious Vice Mayor LEANNA SOPHIA AMARU FREEMAN, whose 1550 days of petulance during Mayor Shavers terms was unworthy of even a spoiled brat and a divorce lawyer (FREEMAN happens to be both).

St. Augustine Assistant City Manager TIMOTHY ALAN BURCHFIELD (Florida CPA license no. AC0021603) allegedly left a mess of the books of the Catholic mission shrine here.  Tten he went to work in a sinecure for the City of St. Augustine, where he has encumbered a position and greased a chair since 1979.

Under longtime City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRIS, BURCHFIELD threw his weight around like Lavrenti Berea, Stalin's infamous chief of secret police.

(HARRISS is most noted for dumping a landfill in a lake.  HARRISS is now  $1500/month janissary for Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994, HARRISS continues to pressure the City government on behalf of developers.  Lobbyists are not required to register here, at the city or county level, but several disclosures of ex parte  contacts have turned up HARRISS' name as contacting Commissioners.)

During election campaigns, bumptious BURCHFIELD is noted for surveilling the homes of City employees and complaining about yard signs, a violation of the First and Ninth Amendments.

Bigoted BURCHFIELD has destroyed evidence, including videotapes of years of City Commission meetings where environmental crimes and mismanagement were claimed.  Rather than giving tapes to the Historical Society Research Library, he destroyed history.
)This was a sin, a crime and a tort.  It establishes the need for independence for the City Clerk, to keep from destroying our records ever again.)

Bilious wight BURCHFIELD  gave a false affidavit claiming there were no documents to produce in response to an Open Records request by Dr. Dwight Hines, Ph.D.  Two City Commissioners at the time, JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. and SUSAN BURK -- both licensed attorneys -- stated that they wanted to make Dr. Hines "pay the piper" for a frivolous lawsuit.  Clerk records established neither one had read the lawsuit for emitting their laughable ukases.    Intrepid vestigation by the City's learned special counsel, Sidney Franklin Ansbacher, LLM of Upchurch, Bailey and Upchurch, revealed that there were 45 pounds of responsive records, plus computer records.  BURCHFIELD filed a false affidavit saying there were no records.  BURCHEFIELD was not fired.

When City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E., became City Manager in 2010, he retained BURCHFIELD's services, such as they are.  This failed accountant and despicable human being has now worked for the City for 30 years.

It is time for BURCHFIELD to go.  Now.