Here is a 2002 article about Stephanie Hightower during her tenure as school board president. This is the person now making a pro-levy pitch on commercials airing on Black radio stations, and who will be debating at the Columbus Metropolitan Club next week. Why do they keep dragging these people out of the wood work? -- they had their chances and failed, and now they are the solution? SCHOOL DISTRICT URGED TO MAKE REFORMS - Petro recommends bolstering auditing staff Columbus Dispatch, The (OH) - Monday, September 23, 2002 Author: Bill Bush and John Futty ; THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Columbus Board of Education President Stephanie Hightower weakened the districts accountability structure by ordering the districts internal auditor to report to her, according to a report being released today by state Auditor Jim Petro. The report, which Hightower requested, recommends that Columbus Public Schools make sweeping structural changes in how they investigate their operations for financial accountability. The internal auditor position -- vacant since Aug. 1, when Mitch Coffman ended a confrontational two-year stint as the first and only chief watchdog -- should be filled without delay by someone with sufficient stature to communicate as a peer of the superintendent and treasurer, the report says. It recommends that the internal auditor be equal to the treasurer and superintendent on the districts organizational chart. The board should raise the auditor s salary from $70,000 to between $90,000 and $125,000, bolster the auditing staff and send clear, unambiguous messages to district management about its support and commitment to the mission of internal auditing. That message became muddied when, in April 2001, Hightower ordered Coffman to report to her instead of the audit committee, a three-member volunteer panel of local accountants with the power to order investigations into any district employee, transaction or contract. Hightower yesterday welcomed most of Petros recommendations but said shed like to see the internal auditor serve as an extension of the board instead of an equal to the treasurer and superintendent. Ultimately, she said, his office will be auditing work of both of those offices. She said her memo requiring Coffman to report to her was misinterpreted as a power move but was issued with the support of the full board as a way of helping members gauge how the auditor was doing his job. Some information had come to the board about how time was being spent by the auditor , where it was being spent and not being able to locate the person, Hightower said. So the board felt it was necessary that we set up a situation where we could figure out what was going on. But Hightowers mandate, Petros report says, resulted in a migration away from rather than toward best practices, and places the board president in an awkward position vis-a-vis the rest of the Board of Education. It also restricted (the audit committees) oversight authority by removing its functional supervision of (Coffman), and set apart the board president, as a single individual, as the direct supervisor of the internal audit function. The addition of a requirement that the internal auditor sign in with the treasurer relegates the director of internal auditing subordinate to the treasurer. Hightower ordered Coffman to sign in and out of his office daily with Treasurer Jerry Buccilla, saying that the board needed to keep a closer eye on Coffman but not explaining why. Coffman also had to submit a weekly schedule by 9 a.m. each Monday, fill out a summary of his weeks activities each Friday and get Hightowers approval before meeting with the audit committee. Later, Hightower told Coffman not to undertake operation audits -- those that examine how department operations can be improved -- but to concern himself with controls, processes and procedures. Hightower defended her decision to have the treasurer keep track of Coffman, saying that Petros original report recommending an internal auditor said the position administratively reports to the treasurer. I told them, You all told us to do that, Hightower said. She agrees with the states latest recommendation for the internal auditor to report to the full board. Petro recommended that the board hire an internal auditor as a watchdog of district finances in 1998 after finding serious deficiencies in the district treasurers office. The board then hired Buccilla as its treasurer and state audits have shown steady improvement. The latest audit included five findings, down from seven in 1999-2000, 15 in 1998-99 and 24 in 1997-98. Board members Jeff Cabot and Karen Schwarzwalder also expressed support for Petros latest recommendations, saying the board needed direction about whom the internal auditor should report to. I think there was a good deal of confusion, said Cabot, who also mentioned concerns about whether Coffman was in his office when he was supposed to be. Schwarzwalder said Hightowers memo asking Coffman to report to her was an interim measure until permanent procedures could be established. The board felt uncomfortable with the lack of process and procedures, she said. It was my impression, and I think the board presidents impression, that it needed more work. Hightower, Schwarzwalder and Cabot support the recommended increase in the internal auditor s salary. I firmly believe the best practices and efficiencies that an internal auditor and staff will put in place will more than pay for the internal auditor and staff, Cabot said. Coffman steered clear of commenting on suggestions that the board didnt have enough information about how his time was spent, instead saying the focus should be on Petros recommendations. The recommendations are solid and basic fundamentals of the internal auditing function. . . . The question the board has to ask is: Do they want a true internal auditing function? Petros report recommends that the audit committee be changed from three to five members -- three would be members of the board of education and two would be volunteer accountants. The committee should be the chief investigatory arm of the district and have a budget sufficient to carry out its duties. The report has said none of the current three members should be replaced until their staggered terms of up to four years expire or one resigns. John Davis, Robert Puccio and Greta Russell were appointed to the panel in 1999. Davis, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, will be chairman of the committee. Puccio is director of human resources at Nationwide Insurance, and Russell is controller at Ohio State University. bbush@dispatch jfutty@dispatch
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 19:35:41 +0000
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