State Auditor Not Doing A Fucking Thing–On Purpose
Backwards reels the mind. You just have to read this article about Park City Kathy refusing, refusing, to do her job. Says she doesn’t have the resources, so agencies will just have to pay for her office to do audits, otherwise she won’t do them. Some fair-use excerpts:
Emails obtained by The News Journal show that in the weeks leading up to last Friday’s announcement that Odyssey Charter was put on formal review, the secretary of education had sought a state audit of the school.
But the state auditor resisted.
Citing lack of staff and recent changes to state law, Delaware Auditor Kathy McGuiness told Susan Bunting, the secretary of education, that her office was limited in how it could fulfill the request, unless it was willing to pay an hourly rate to begin an investigation.
She apparently interprets the Delaware Code as saying that she doesn’t have to do a fucking thing:
McGuiness said her office has received scores of requests for investigations since she became auditor in early 2019.
“These requests, along with the numerous unfinished audits I found upon taking office, are above and beyond the audits and engagements mandated in the Delaware Code,” McGuiness wrote to Bunting.
Hold that thought for just a second. Later in the same piece, we get the following:
McGuiness would not disclose any information about the scores of other requests she has received since taking office, including how many of them have resulted in audits.
She guesses that she has received so many requests — sometimes several a day — because of the public outreach initiatives she has promoted since taking office.
“We are pleased to receive these requests,” an email from the auditor’s office said.
Oh. So you do a phony baloney PR campaign (public outreach initiatives) to solicit audit requests, and you then do nothing with them.
This woman is a disaster. She’s already in Karen Weldin Stewart territory. At least we’ve got a mission statement for her office:
“Holding Audits Hostage Since 2019”.
Reminder – The Democratic primary is the election.
It is nice to see the News Journal finally picking up on this. I met with them weeks ago about this issue. I got tired of waiting on the News Journal story so I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday.
Please share, everyone should know about this, this is the only way I can share with the public, most importantly the taxpayers.
The News Journal is reporting that Odyssey’s formal review move comes after the Department of Education had requested the state auditor look into the school. THE REQUEST IS STILL PENDING.
The News Journal knows this is not accurate information, there is no audit being performed.
I met with the News Journal several weeks ago. I provided lots of information to them about this story and they are selectively reporting on this story, not sure why.
I received an anonymous letter back in July 2018 concerning Odyssey Charter School; I immediately contacted DOE about the letter and the allegations. I set up a meeting in January with DOE about additional allegations that came forward, this time it was not an anonymous source. The auditor’s office was informed about the issues at Odyssey Charter School at the end of January 2019, the Department of Education and I thought the auditor’s office was conducting an audit. The auditor’s office received two binders of information about what was going on at Odyssey.
When DOE was notified that the auditor’s office was not going to perform the audit, a few members of the General Assembly wrote a letter to the auditor on April 3, 2019, requesting an audit. The auditor’s office declined our request; we were told that the auditor’s office was not working on the audit because DOE did not sign an MOU that they presented to the DOE.
A group of legislators wrote a letter to AG Jennings about this issue as well, in a letter dated April 5, 2019.
There is a 12-page Public Integrity Commission letter that has been issued about all of these issues as well. These are some serious allegations here that need to be investigated.
The auditor’s office will not perform the audit until a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is signed by Secretary Bunting. The Secretary cannot sign the MOU because the auditor cannot provide a total cost for the audit. The auditor’s office basically wants Sec. Bunting to sign a blank check and the Secretary refuses to sign the MOU and I agree completely with the Secretary on this. The auditor’s office wants to charge $160 an hour for a manager, $80 an hour for each staff member and then the auditor’s office wants to add a fee of 7.9% on top of this cost as a management fee.
The Department of Education has reminded the auditor that DOE has not paid for an investigative audit. There have been several audit investigations over the last several years such as School District Referendum, Academy of Dover Charter School, DOE Travel, Charter School pCard and Personal Reimbursements, Providence Creek Charter School, Family Foundations Charter School, Indian River School District, Sussex Tech and School District Expenditures, DOE was not charged for these audits.
There are some serious allegations here and the state cannot get the auditor to move on an audit. We raised concerns back in January, it is now May, 4 months later and we are still waiting. What is the point of an auditor’s office if they are not going to respond to fraud, waste or abuse?
This is a complete mess. Many of us have been on to this for a while. It’s why I supported Kathleen Davies for Auditor. McGuiness has the resources in her offices to get this job done — Davies knows exactly how to perform this type of audit.
What in the hell is going on here?
She needs to go in 2022
Kim’s comment has me riled up. Bottom Line: McGuiness is a fucking joke who ran as a fucking joke, who had her joke-ass flunkies swear loyalty oaths that were fucking jokes. It is sickening, really.
Remember when she said not being an auditor wasn’t an issue?
Delaware needs a recall process, and it needs it now.
I’ve generally opposed this, just b/c Rethugs use it as a dripdripdrip tactic of going after people they don’t like. But, with incompetents like KWS, KHN and KKM, I agree that it’s time.
If this isn’t the job of the Auditor, then what the bleep is? Here’s an excerpt from Kim’s post that really has me PO’d:
“The auditor’s office wants to charge $160 an hour for a manager, $80 an hour for each staff member and then the auditor’s office wants to add a fee of 7.9% on top of this cost as a management fee.”
That’s a hell of a lot of ‘managing’ and an indeterminate amount of ‘auditing’.
JFC should put in epilog language to the Auditor’s Operating Budget something along the lines of “payment of these funds to the Office of State Auditor shall be contingent upon the successful completion of an audit into the Odyssey Charter School and shall be provided to the Office only upon completion of said audit.” If there are other audits that Kathy is resisting, add them to the list as well.
Even by clown like Delaware standards this is a rather bad joke, any way we can flush McGuiness before another election cycle?
I have to wonder… McGuiness appointed several $100,000+ positions in her Iron Throne AOA with either Greek last names or those who had prior Greek last names. Is she covering for Odyssey? Is there some kind of Greek mafia in Delaware where you cover your own regardless of doing your fucking job? Sounds crazy but this is Kathy McGuiness…
Noticed the Greek thing weeks ago. Her maiden name is Kremedas. Greeks in Delaware are a pretty tight-knit group.
Or maybe she’s just in the tank for charter schools in general.
😄 I just have to laugh. Voters so uninformed and backwards. Kathy Mcguiness won because she is female snd has a D next to her name on the ballot. And we are paying dearly for it. It really is pathetic.
She ran against another Democratic female as mentioned multiple times above
Good analysis, dipshit
The primary is the general. We’ll keep that mind.
Kathy McGuiness belongs to no party. She can put a D next to her name but the only one she serves is herself. That’s the way it has always been.
Common theme for Delaware Democrats.
Dearly? Nice hyperbole. Love the idea of a gun nut calling others “backwards.” Fucking pants-pisser.
Want to win a democratic primary in this state? Raise the most money. That’s what the auditors race came down too. Who could get the most mail out and possibly on tv.
So is the auditors office completely omnipotent? NO pressure can be put on her to actually do her job?
I think that’s that point of of all this.
Remind me again who she beat?
A guitarist slash popo?
looking at her Bio – how could anyone have seen this coming.
Yeah. I am reminded of the fact that she is Pete’s hand-picked joke-ass flunkey. Who knows she might have gotten the idea for the fucking fake-ass swearing-in ceremony from Pete swearing her to loyalty? It is more than possible. It is probable.
We can thank Pistol Pete and the Democratic cronies for Park City. BTW, did her Bio mention her home wrecking abilities. What a joke!
meow!
Can Kim W get some epilogue language in the budget requiring the auditor to perform the Odyssey audit and prohibiting her from charging fees?
There was only one reason to vote for McGuiness and that was that she would use her many political connections to rebuild the office and its staff after 20 years of decay under Wagner. I suspect in part this is a poorly thought out publicity stunt to highlight and promote those efforts for budget hearing purposes.
The most alarming part to me is the notion that the whistleblower hotline is ringing and no one is following up. Whistleblowers are placing their careers in the hands of strangers which takes a fair amount of courage. Hearing from the horse’s mouth that they can’t pursue any of the tips would give me pause. What is the point of “outreach efforts” if you don’t have the staff to follow-up?
And I disagree that the primary is the election for this office. Wagner held it for a quarter century.
Wrong not a gun nut I just happen to value the constitution. You’d probably be surprised that for the same reasons I don’t support backwards abortion laws like Missouri and Alabama, even Ohio’s.
There is nothing at all in the Constitution about abortion.
You are mistaking your interpretation of the Constitution for the document itself. Common among conservatives.
The Constitution is honored as much in the breach as the observance. The 14th Amendment, for example, was twisted out of shape by a court clerk. So reverence for “the Constitution” is usually just a self-delusion. Common among conservatives.
con stit TOON shun
Better people die than to make an adjustment and in the footnotes!
Shameless plug for more on McGuiness and her numerous conflicts of interest in regards to the matter with Odyssey Charter School:
https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2019/05/22/exclusive-public-integrity-commission-slams-odysseys-board-potential-mcguiness-ties-to-ahepa-creates-huge-conflicts-of-interest/
After reading Kevin’s piece, it’s clear to me that Park City has a blatant conflict of interest, and there’s no way she’ll do her job on this.
So, I have a proposed change to the Epilog Language I suggested above:
“The Department Of Education shall contract to conduct an Audit of the Odyssey Charter School. Funds for this audit shall transfer from the appropriated budgetary funds of the Office Of State Auditor, and shall be subtracted from the budget of OSA. Additionally, results of this audit will be released to the public on a timely basis.”
That last line is in there b/c, after Tom Wagner buried the audit of Dick Cathcart and the no-bid contracts he awarded while he was at Delaware State University, the General Assembly counterintuitively and inexplicably passed legislation prohibiting the release of ‘work product’ from the Auditor’s office.
“After reading Kevin’s piece, it’s clear to me that Park City has a blatant conflict of interest, there’s no way she’ll do her job on this.”
Just get the copy and paste ready El Som, it’ll save you some keystrokes for the next 3 1/2 years.
I do a LOT of cut/paste in situations like this. You’re right. Saves me oodles of time.
It sounds like the Auditor will have to resign ahead of an investigation that is, no doubt, currently under way.