This is re-posted from the Fairfax Library Adovcates blog.
Subject: Audit forms
voluntary
Summary: County officials confirm that completion of
the recently distributed audit forms, or CSAs, is strictly voluntary. Individual groups may complete them in detail,
send in an alternate document such as a 990, or ignore them. It was also noted a version of the CSA meant
for County offices was inadvertently included in the letter sent to Friends’
groups and can be ignored. End Summary
A group of the Fairfax
Library Advocates, accompanied by an attorney providing pro bono assistance,
met with County officials Wednesday afternoon, following up on the earlier
meeting of January 9, 2015.
As is standard practice, the
Advocates emphasized they do not speak for or represent anyone other than
themselves.
The purpose of the meeting
was to try to rectify discrepancies between statements made by senior County officials
and the materials distributed to various groups. In
pursuit of this, the conversation began with an attempt to clarify the origin
of the audit request. It has been
repeatedly acknowledged by all parties that the Fairfax County Federation of
Citizens Associations did not request an audit of the Friends' accounts. Further, a previous assertion that a homeowner’s group
asked for the audit has no merit. There
have been no allegations of impropriety by any Friends group. From discussions with members of concerned
groups it appears the request did not originate with the Board of Supervisors,
the Board of Trustees, Branch Managers or staff, the Board Auditor’s office,
the media, or any outside group. A very
limited number of possible originating offices remain, but the officials
declined comment. The officials made it clear that they could not speak to
anything other than the details of the CSA itself and that the auditor was
simply doing as required by the BOS Resolution.
On the timing of the request,
there is no indication that a review of Friends’ assets and operations was
contemplated until after the Federation made its request for an audit of the
Library Administration’s System Gift Fund.
Moving to the audit itself,
the Auditor’s office representatives stated they developed the Control Self
Assessments (CSAs) in response to instructions from the Board of Supervisors in
the Board Minutes of December 2, 2014. The Advocates noted that set of Board Minutes
was drafted under the false assumption that the Federation had requested the
Friends be audited and the entire premise of the request was thus in question. The Auditors replied they worked with the
instructions they were given. The
Advocates accepted that the Auditor’s office had to follow orders but asked
when the Board Minutes would be corrected and if this would then obviate
subsequent instructions. This question was
outside the purview of the County participants and it was agreed this would be
better addressed to the Board of Supervisors.
The Auditors noted at this point
that two versions of the CSA, one for the Friends and a different one for
County offices, had inadvertently been sent out together. Only the first version, marked for “FOL” need
be considered.
The Advocates wondered under
what authority the County was auditing independent 501 (c) 3 organizations. They noted Chairman Bulova had written Acting
Advocates Chairman Hays on October 31, 2014 and stated, “The Friends accounts,
to my knowledge, are not subject to county audits since they are separate (non-county)
non-profits.” The officials then stated that completion of the forms was strictly
voluntary and thus no authority was needed.
This surprised the Advocates present, who stated the letter sent gave
the strong impression that the County was insisting on these forms being completed. The County officials repeated that the
process was voluntary. When asked if
that meant any given Friends group could choose to fill out the form in
exhaustive detail, choose to send in only documents already prepared for other
purposes like a 990, choose to answer N/A to everything, or choose to ignore
the request entirely the answer was yes.
This led to a discussion of
what was the purpose of the CSAs. The
Auditor explained there were several ways he could have approached satisfying
the Supervisors’ request including a full audit but he settled on the CSA
approach as he felt it likely to be the easiest and the most useful. One goal was to better understand and track
funds flowing into and out of the Library Administration’s gift fund.
When it became evident not
everyone was familiar with the system used to collect and account for funds
that go to the gift fund, one of the Advocates with direct and extensive
knowledge of this explained the process.
Briefly, through the new Comprise system the County collects all monies
and has complete control of the entire process.
The Friends generally have no knowledge of what has been collected until
the County returns that portion which goes to the Friends. Given the County controls 100% of this process,
what could the Friends usefully add? The
Auditor contended that additional information was always helpful and served to
verify other accounts.
A second use of the CSAs is
to determine best practices that can then be shared with other groups. In response
to this it was noted many Friends groups already share information and ideas
and there were regular Forums that also served this purpose.
Meanwhile, all the focus on
an audit of the Friends has taken attention away from the request the Federation
actually did make in this area, a full audit of the Library Administration’s
Gift Fund. During the January 9th
meeting with Chairman Bulova, the Library Administrators agreed to provide
information beginning with copies of detailed quarterly reports on the uses of
the Fund already produced and distributed to Branch Managers. These (dating back at least five years) have
not yet been received.
The County officials were
gracious with their time and professionally presented their reasoning for their
actions.
The Advocates concluded by
noting the voluntary aspect of the CSA was unclear to many people as was the
continued inaccurate reference to the CSAs being developed in response to a
Federation request. The Advocates
suggested the County clarify these two points and perhaps provide additional
justification for their remaining requests in a follow-up letter.
Comment – the County made no
claim to any right to insist the Friends provide information on anything other
than a voluntary basis. It is our
opinion they correctly understand this as there is no such right. The proposed new MOU is yet to be seen, and may
assert some claim in this area, but the County officials said they have no
knowledge of what may or may not be in the MOU as this rests with the
Trustees.
Every Friends Group is, of
course, free to take any action it sees fit with respect to the CSAs. A variety of responses can probably be
expected. The
auditor did say that he had received phone calls from several Friends’ groups
asking questions. The meeting
ended with a reaffirmation of a desire to work collaboratively on issues of
common concern and the additional clarifications received here help in that
regard.
