A RESOLUTION establishing a committee to develop recommendations to enhance the capacity of the Office of City Auditor to conduct performance audits.
To be part of the City Council agenda item one Resolution 319 41 establishing a committee to develop recommendations to enhance the capacity of the Office of City Auditor to conduct performance audit. I moved to adopt resolution 31941. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution. Councilmember Lewis, you are the lead sponsor of this resolution, so I will yield the floor to you. Thank you so much, council president. All right. So as I mentioned last week during the briefing, I started working on putting this together with central staff and the council president's office in January. Given that COVID broke out, we put it on hold for a little while. But having consulted with the city auditor and with the Office of the Inspector General, that there was a lot of feeling from stakeholders that there was capacity to move forward and do this work remotely, since it didn't really involve much field work or require people to meet in person. And the meetings could probably be accommodated remotely. The idea behind the resolution is, is essentially to have a group of experts composed of folks who have been practicing and the auditing space, our own office, the inspector general and the city auditor, both of whom report to us and perform the auditing function for the city of Seattle as legislative officers in the legislative branch, though not the Legislative Department, but in their own departments, but in the legislative branch of government. And for a group to come together and make a couple of recommendations to Councilmember Gonzales, this committee, on something that could possibly enhance the oversight and efficacy driving role of both the Office of the Inspector General and the City Auditor, just based on really looking into a lot of the capacity of those offices and what their running and current needs are. Just just a little bit of overview of the Office of the Inspector General as it has been created in the post consent decree space and beefed up has essentially the softball auditing function of overseeing the Seattle Police Department and making sure that arm's one through collective bargaining and mandated by this council are being implemented and that the department is meeting its goals. And then obviously the Office of the City Auditor, which has that same goal for our role essentially for every other department in the city. We we have a from initial analysis, and I think that Lisa Kay is on the call. Lisa, can you confirm that? I saw your name earlier, see it in front of me now, but from central staff, but from an analysis that she put together that I took a look at relative to other other yard. Yes. I'm on the line. Thank you. Right. And based on an analysis that the mosque and central staff put together for my office, you know, the city of Seattle does have some things that are kind of unique to it in terms of how our auditing function is set up. We have a a smaller staff relative to some of the other auditing offices in our region, including King County and the city of Portland. We we use a lot more outside consultants than internal staff, than some other auditing offices. So instead of kind of stumbling through this as an amateur, because I'm not an expert in performance auditing, I thought it would be a good idea to convene a group with the blessing and support of the Inspector General and the auditor, David Jones, to look at some ways that maybe the function and capacity of their offices could be enhanced and then have that report possibly inform some work for us as a council in the fall and beyond that. So that's essentially what the resolution does. It's pretty bare bones, but part of my inspiration for it was the Rental Housing Inspection Stakeholder Committee that I was appointed to by Nick Licata and the City Council back in 2011 or 2012, and sort of the work that that group did to be sort of a sounding board to help inform Councilmember Lacob his office on the eventual rental housing inspection legislation that was passed by the council. So that's what that's what we're getting at with the resolution. And I know Lisa's on the call to possibly answer some questions, and I'm happy to answer your questions as well. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis so you know, ordinarily we have to suspend the rules to allow non council members to address the city council. So before I suspend the rules, I'm just going to ask first if any of my colleagues have questions about this resolution that are directed to council's central staff. Okay. I'm not seeing any of our colleagues expressing an interest in or a desire to get additional information from from Lisa Kay. So I don't think we need to go unless you disagree. Councilmember Lewis. I don't think we need to go through the process of having Lisa address the the council. Do you have an objection to that? Oh, no, no. But I just I do want to thank Ms.. Kay for for calling in so that we did have that. And but if no one has any questions for I. I think we're okay. Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Are there any questions or comments on the resolution? Councilmember Peterson. Thank you. I wanted to thank Councilmember Lewis for introducing this. Anything that can give our city auditor a high profile is great. We just talked about an audit they released last week that Councilmember Skinner had initiated about Seattle City Light. I really believe that the city auditor can do a lot of good for our city, especially as we face an economic recession where we're going to see our revenue sources dropping. We're going to have a hole in our budget. The city auditor is well-poised to find savings and has done that in the past, and I hope that this will make the office even more robust in finding savings, making the city government even more efficient. So I want to thank Councilmember Lewis for that. And to those of those of us who are really familiar with the workings of Capitol Hill know that the Congress has the Congressional Budget Office, the current National Research Service, the General Accounting Office. And so by us having a stronger city auditor is going to be better for for all of us. So I just want to thank Councilmember Lewis for introducing us. I did have a quick question and a clarifying question about one of the sections or subsections of the resolution. Section one, a list the members of the working group. And just wanted to clarify when it says, since we're talking about city government, when we're talking about a representative of a labor union, I'm hoping that would be a labor union that is representing city employees just so there's more of a connection. Yeah, and I'm happy to speak to that. First, I want to thank you for for Your Honor. The resolution as a whole. Answer the question. I, I do want to state, though, that it's really important to note that while oftentimes performance audits do lead to practices that are more efficient and do save money, and in fact, King County has saved over $200 million in the last three years. The performance auditing. Auditing goes first and foremost to advocacy. You know, our programs working. Are they doing the things that we as a council wanted the programs to do oftentimes and not uncommonly, that actually leads to programs needing more money or finding holes where more repairs are needed for a program to realize that the full effect and impact. So a flag that that you know like while efficiency is something that that tends to come as an ancillary benefit to an audit efficacy and foremost a the primary goal and it's the primary goal of what I hope will come out of this this resolution. So I just want to flag that to make it clear that that efficiency and efficacy, while they sometimes go together as an audit, comes back and says, you know, we actually need more revenue, we need more money because we're not we don't have enough to to make it work with this. To respond to the question. Yeah. I mean, my my intent and I've discussed this extensively with Protect 17, my hope would be someone from Protect 17 would be the lady, the person who would serve on this because they represent a lot of folks. I'm across different departments. I've talked to Sean VanDyke and he's excited and to work with the council on this and to really see some of the changes that Protect 17 has flagged over the years as places where the city could be more accountable, responsive and efficacious. So I appreciate that comment, Councilmember Peterson. And I would hope that one of the bargaining units with then the city would be in that position. You. Thank you. Council Members. Councilor Lewis, I have in my notes that you intended to make an amendment to this Council bill. Do you still intend to bring that amendment forward? Yes, I do. Councilmember Gonzalez, thanks for flagging that. And here I'm just going to look up in the exact language of the amendment here just to make sure that I get to. Wording, right? But I believe it was circulated in advance. That it is. It is. The proposed amendment is proposed amendment one. It is listed on the regularly published agenda. So it was appropriately and timely circulated. And so we just need you to make the motion, get a second, and then we will talk about the proposed amendment. You are now going to have it in front of me. I do move proposed Amendment one to be adopted. Second, and as the prime sponsor of the amendment, you should feel free to speak to it. Councilmember Lewis. Right. I mean, mostly it just clarified. That now. It went to Lisa's. Sorry. Doing all this on one screen is challenging. All right, so the proposed amendment one, it puts in an amendment to substitute Section one A to just basically make it clear that Councilmember Gonzales, you can designate somebody to be the primary city council member to , um, to chair this workgroup and then report back to your committee. Whereas the, the old language doesn't necessarily make it clear that you have the power and authority to, to make that delegation so central staff felt it was important to have that language in there. You know, I agreed with central staff, so we are putting that amendment forward. Right. So it's been moved and seconded to amend the resolution as described by Council member Lewis. He's already spoken to it. Are there any comments or questions about the amendment hearing and will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment? Councilmember Lewis. Hi. Councilmember Morales. I Council member Mesquita i council member Peterson I. Council member salon I. Council member stress i. Councilmember Hurdle I. Councilmember Juarez. I. President Gonzalez, I. Nine in favor none opposed. I think in the motion carries and the amendment is adopted. Are there any further comments on the resolution as amended hearing? And then I will ask the clerk to please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution as amended. Council member, Lewis. I'm sorry, Councilmember Lewis. Oh, I. Councilmember Morales by. Councilmember Macheda. I don't remember Peterson. I. Council members want I. Council Member Strauss I. Council Member Herbold i. Councilmember Suarez, I. I think. Gonzales, I. Nine in favor. None opposed the resolution as adopted, as amended, and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Is there any other further business to come before the Council? Okay, colleagues. But did somebody say no? No. Yeah. I won't tell you who I suspect. I know who it was. Okay. So love a gun. No. Yeah, I hear you. So. So that concludes the business on our agenda for today. There is no further business on today's agenda. And we will convene again on Monday. April, I know what that day is. April 13th at 2 p.m.. Otherwise, we are adjourned. Thank you, colleagues, for your patience and your attention. I thank the council president. Thank you, everybody. Good job by. I. Goodbye.