Investigators say Clerk-Treasurer’s Office undertook destroying 200 boxes of records
On Monday, Oct. 25, the Westfield City Council received the findings of a 13-month long assessment of Westfield’s financial records and determination of potential fraud, waste or abuse.
Westfield Mayor Andy Cook introduced the presentation and explained a brief history of what lead up to the audit.
Cook
“In the summer of 2020, there was council mention of improprieties financially with the city, particularly involving Grand Park. Shortly after, this administration invoked the state law to order such an investigation into the city,” Cook said. “In August and September of 2020, we engaged three firms to conduct this investigation of our city operation and a forensic financial audit. We expected this to take about six months at that time.”
Cook explained a previous concern expressed by the council was that his administration would be involved in the results of the investigation or would have the opportunity to see the results before they were completed.
“I pledged to all of you at that time that we would all be presented with those results at the same time, and that will happen tonight,” Cook said. “I have not seen this report. I have not discussed it with the people that will be presenting to you.”
At Monday’s meeting, Zachary Klutz from Taft Stettinius & Hollister explained the role of each of the three partnering firms conducting the review of the city.
Taft Stettinus & Hollister focused on compliance with the law.
Klutz introduced Daniel Hedden from Baker Tilly Municipal Advisors, the firm that would focus on an operational review and assessment of the City of Westfield primarily as it relates to financial matters.
Klutz indicated Bryan Callahan from BKD CPAs & Advisors conducted a forensic audit of the city’s books and accounts designated to detect fraud, waste and abuse.
Klutz
“We were aware of allegations that we were directed by the mayor or city administration officials to target certain parties or officials as a part of the examination, or that we were otherwise instructed to include or not include certain things in the report. This is patently false and did not occur,” said Klutz in his opening remarks to the council.
Klutz said during the investigation timely responses were received from the Westfield City Council and administration to various requests for information and documents.
“Unfortunately, we did not receive access or timely responses for information, records, data and documents directed to the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office,” Klutz said. “Even when info was provided by the Clerk-Treasurer, it was often incomplete, the wrong information, in the wrong format or simply not responsive to our underlying requests.”
Klutz also explained the investigation was delayed due to litigations between the mayor and the clerk-treasurer.
“Another significant delay occurred in late February of 2021 when the Clerk-Treasurer’s office undertook to destroy, through Indiana Statutory Document Destruction Process, reportedly over 200 boxes of city records, files and documents maintained by the clerk-treasurer’s office. According to the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office, such document destruction is undertaken once per year for documents over 10 years old.”
Klutz said because of the large volume of documents to be destroyed, and because of the fact it was occurring during an audit process and while information and document requests were pending, investigators did undertake efforts to review the information the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office sought to destroy.
In addition, investigators learned there had not been any notices filed for record destruction by the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office in the past four years other than the one filed in 2021.
At the conclusion of the presentation, council members were provided with the report that totaled more than 400 pages.
Members of the council and Mayor Cook both agreed to review the report and to discuss its findings at a later date. “We have a lot to digest,” Cook said.
Click here to watch a video of Monday’s Westfield City Council meeting and discussion regarding the investigation.
Interestingly, this article does not mention that anything was found with the destruction to be incorrect. It also does not mention, the law firm overseeing the “examination” had also filed a lawsuit on the Clerk/Treasurer on behalf of the Administration. I think reasonable people will see the conflict of interest here, even when they say there is none. Listen to the meeting and decide for yourself.
The taxpayer’s of Westfield deserve to see both reports in full in order to more fully understand the summary findings presented at the council meeting. We paid for this process and are entitled to review the work product to enable us to draw informed conclusions as to the findings and not be left to rely solely on the inevitable political finger pointing that is sure to ensue.
It’s on the City website. Appears the CT office is a mess. Read it and form your own opinion.