McHenry County’s Finance and Audit Committee is going to hear the report from the outside auditors on Lincoln’s Birthday (the 12th to those readers who don’t have the day off), but the public won’t be allowed in on the discussion.
Here’s how the agenda item, right at the end of the meeting, reads:
Executive Session – 5 ILCS 120/2 (C) (29) Meetings between internal or external auditors and governmental audit committees, finance committees, and their equivalents
And, yes, it’s in boldface type.
By being held in a secret session, pesky taxpayers won’t be able to learn what, if anything, is wrong with the handling of their money.
The County Board, of course, is not alone in hiding such information from the public.
McHenry County College, does, too.
One has to wonder why public officials would want to allow their constituents to assume the worst.
Does anyone know what basis they are claiming an exemption under the Open Meetings Act to hold this discussion in a closed session?
It’s one of the many (too many) exemptions to the Open Meeting Act courtesy of the Illinois General Assembly and Governors.
Illinois has a lot of exemptions compared to most other states.
(29) Meetings between internal or external auditors and governmental audit committees, finance committees, and their equivalents, when the discussion involves internal control weaknesses, identification of potential fraud risk areas, known or suspected frauds, and fraud interviews conducted in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards of the United States of America.
General Provisions
(5 ILCS 120/) Open Meetings Act.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=84&ChapterID=2
Thanks for the clarification.
If it was a clean audit, there would be no need for a closed session.
I did review last year’s Audit Report and they did have 3 findings of siginifcant deficiencies.
Based on the history of the Finance Committee’s meeting minutes, it looks like they had an executive session on 4/1/14 for 3.5 hours to discuss these deficiencies from the last audit.
Its interesting to note that in the Auditor’s findings they state that they have repeatedly identified siginifcant deficiencies in Purchasing procedures since 2009 and that, apparently, they were never addressed.
Given that this closed session is coming more than a month and a half earlier that last year’s audit internal controls findings discussion, I might be leaning toward the news being worse this time around rather than better.