City Responds to Inadequate Inspector General Reports

A report issued by the independent accounting firm REDW has confirmed long-standing concerns about the quality and fairness of reports issued by the City’s Office of Inspector General.

The Albuquerque City Council created the OIG in 2010 in order to investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse.  Earlier this year, the City’s Albuquerque Accountability in Government Oversight Committee, a citizen committee tasked with overseeing the Office, asked the accounting firm REDW, Inc. to review nine reports the OIG had prepared for publication.  The AGO’s decision was based on concerns about the quality of the investigations that had been conducted and the accuracy of the OIG’s findings.

In a report released today, REDW concluded that OIG investigators failed to ensure that they understood City processes when conducting investigations, failed to produce evidence to support their conclusions and conducted one-sided investigations, disregarding evidence that might have supported different conclusions. The report also concluded that former Inspector General Melissa Santistevan, who left the City in June when her term of employment expired, failed to properly supervise the office or establish quality control procedures.

“This review confirms concerns the administration has raised about the OIGs’ professionalism, bias, and compliance with standards,” said Chief Administrative Officer Samantha Sengel. “The administration has repeatedly raised concern that the OIG failed to give City Departments the opportunity to provide information or respond to allegations, did not understand City operations, and made unsupported findings. 

“We hope the Council will select a new Inspector General who will take these issues seriously and fix the many problems that REDW identified,” said Sengel.

REDW’s report calls the OIG’s prior reports into question, Sengel argued.  “It’s not clear that anyone can rely on the information or conclusions included in any IG report published in the past four years,” Sengel said.

While some City Councilors suggested that AGO exceeded its authority in delaying publication pending the outside review, that is not the case, said City Attorney Lauren Keefe.

“The City’s ordinance does not mandate that all reports be published.  The AGO has the authority to defer consideration of any report, and the IG can delay publication, or even withdraw a report entirely.” she said.

At the time the AGO sought the review from REDW, three of the reports had already been published. OIG will present two of the outstanding reports at a meeting scheduled for October 16. The remaining three reports will be presented at a later date after further review from OIG.