Dive Brief:
- City of Sacramento Auditor Jorge Oseguera had been investigating the California city's Public Works Department, discovering that there had been continuous wasted time and tax dollars among garbage collectors. However, Oseguera halted his investigation due to a conflict of interest — his brother works for a solid waste hauler.
- Before Oseguera pulled away from the investigation, he unveiled multiple findings, including: drivers in the Integrated Solid Waste Division often spent extra time on their routes to play cards or basketball, and two truck routes ended at least three hours early almost 30% of the time.
- Sacramento has not yet pursued an outside audit of the Department, however Councilman Rick Jennings believes that the city must ensure the tax dollars are being spent properly.
Dive Insight:
Although Oseguera had to pull away from the audit before it was completed, the discovered information may be enough for an outside auditor to continue investigating the apparent issues. Such investigation is important, due to economic conflicts that can arise if solid waste haulers are not fully performing in their jobs. In Cleveland, the city had to paid nearly $1.3 million in overtime in 2015 to compensate some workers for picking up their colleagues' slack. And Cleveland is not the only other city to experience similar problems.
"The whole thing is we want each department audited in a way so it's transparent to the people. And, so therefore, whether that's from an internal audit from our own auditor or from an external one it doesn't matter," said Jennings.
Capital Public Radio reported that it reached out to five council members in regards to an outside audit. All five said they would support an outside audit, however two council members will only do so if it is "warranted."
