Debbie Campbell

for Salisbury City Council

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Home Hot Topics 2008 Audit: Our Victory is Noteworthy and Significant
2008 Audit: Our Victory is Noteworthy and Significant PDF Print E-mail

Our victory is noteworthy and significant. Together we have made our point, and those points have been echoed by professionals in the auditing field and are now made a part of how the City of Salisbury is expected to do business.

2008 Audit

The 2008 City of Salisbury audit is complete and should be formally presented to the public and the council during a televised council meeting on January 26, 2009. This marks an exciting point in our work together to reform the financial practices of the city.

Your engagement as citizens has been invaluable in creating a sense of public expectation. Those expectations, which at my insistence on your behalf, led to the review of the policies and practices of the finance department by an independent firm. Subsequently, the report and the implementation of the reports recommendations, has the potential to improve the way the city manages your money and spends your tax dollars.

Although the audit was late again this year, it was clear that the findings in the 2007 audit have sparked improvement in policies and procedures. The city's new audit firm, Barbacane Thornton & Company, echoed some of the same concerns that I have been raising since 2005...most notably that "the city council does not review financial reports at the council meetings." And that "it is imperative that the council be able to review reports that are germane to the budgetary process, so that there is management oversight."

Our victory is noteworthy and significant. Together we have made our point, and those points have been echoed by professionals in the auditing field and are now made a part of how the City of Salisbury is expected to do business.

I pledge to continue to ask the tough questions when needed and continue to press for accountability and sound financial processes within the City of Salisbury. After all, this is YOUR HARD-EARNED TAX MONEY.

Other victories include your ability to view the City's audit on the City of Salisbury Web site at: http://www.ci.salisbury.md.us/Portals/0/Press/2008%20audit.pdf

And...

The City's audit management letter: http://www.ci.salisbury.md.us/Portals/0/CityGovernment/AuditMgmtLetter.pdf

Also...

The quoted portions of the Single Audit (shown in paragraph 3 above) can be viewed in pdf format by  clicking here .