Chattanooga City Council looks at auditing changes

The Chattanooga City Council will reconsider functional changes to city auditing in two weeks after dissecting the issue for half an hour this afternoon.

“If that’s the will of the council, we (will) wrestle with this for a couple of weeks and look for some options,” Councilman Jack Benson said during the Legal and Legislative Committee meeting.

At issue is that the City Charter states that the internal auditor “shall be appointed by the council, independent of the mayor.” But the internal auditor, Stan Sewell, reports to Mayor Ron Littlefield, and Councilman Leamon Pierce has said that the council never chose an auditor since the City Charter’s inception in 1990.

Among the options discussed today are for the internal auditor to conduct “dual reporting,” where that department reports both to the City Council and the mayor’s office. Mr. Sewell told council members that this is considered the “gold standard” for auditing.

“It would take both of those bodies to terminate their internal auditor,” he said. “It provides an independence at the highest level you really could hope to achieve.”

City Attorney Randy Nelson said the council could achieve dual reporting if the City Charter is changed through a public referendum. He said a measure could go before voters this November.

For more details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.