MEETING: PALM BEACH COUNTY ETHICS/OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE

I.                      CALL TO ORDER: April 7, 2010, at 3:34 p.m., in the McEaddy Conference Room, Palm Beach County Governmental Center, West Palm Beach, Florida.

II.                     ROLL CALL

MEMBERS:

David Baker, Esq., Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay, P.A., Chair

Dennis Gallon, Palm Beach State College President, Vice Chair – Absent

Gale Howden, Leadership Palm Beach County Ethics Initiative Committee

Bob Newmark, Voters’ Coalition Chairman/President

Iris Scheibl, South Florida 9-12 Project Member, South Florida Tea Party Member

STAFF AND OTHERS PRESENT:

Leonard (Lenny) W. Berger, Assistant County Attorney

Wayne O. Condry, Human Resources Department Director

Joe Doucette, Office of Financial Management & Budget Director

Tammy L. Gray, Public Affairs Department Information Specialist

Ronald E. Harbison, CPA, Appointed by the president of the Palm Beach Chapter of the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Patty Hindle, Board of County Commissioners Agenda Coordinator

Davette Labay, Human Resources Department Training & Organizational Development Coordinator

Brad Merriman, Assistant County Administrator

Denise Nieman, County Attorney

Shannon Ramsey-Chessman, Clerk & Comptroller Chief Operating Officer of Finance

Heather C. Shirm, Public Affairs Department Web Design Coordinator

Roger Trca, Clerk & Comptroller Inspector General and Audit Director

Audrey Wolf, Facilities Development & Operations Department Director

Leilani M. Yan, Human Resources Department Recruitment and Selection Manager

Julie Burns, Deputy Clerk

III.                    APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM 2/16/10 MEETING

MOTION to approve the February 16, 2010, minutes. Motion by Bob Newmark, seconded by Gale Howden, and carried 5-0.

David Baker, Esq., Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay, P.A., chair, queried the members whether they wanted the minutes to be in a detailed format, and the consensus was that the minutes were acceptable in the format that was provided.

IV.                   CLERK OF COURTS (SHARON BOCK OR REPRESENTATIVE)

Shannon Ramsey-Chessman, Clerk & Comptroller (Clerk) Chief Operating Officer of Finance, provided an update, and she stated the following:

●          The Clerk’s Office was continuing to work with the vendor, ACS, regarding the Advantage Financial System (AFS), and a concept paper had been drafted.

○          Based on the final, approved policies and procedures manual (PPM), and the different exceptions in the PPM, some modifications were made to the concept paper.

○          The Clerk’s Office was still waiting for a final price quote regarding the changes.

○          The price quote for the original concept paper was in the $250,000 range, and the Clerk’s Office expected that the quote would be somewhat lower.

●          The Clerk’s Office had transformed the receivables portion of the AFS whereby the system would intercept vendor payments.

●          To date, $279 had been collected for the inspector general (IG) fee.

●          Fifty-four open purchase orders were coded with the IG fee.

○          When the invoices were processed and the payments were made, the fee amount should be approximately $6,331.84.

●          Currently, there were no staffing issues so temporary staff had not been hired.

●          The timing of the computer modification implementation would coincide with a planned AFS upgrade.

○          Currently, ACS could include the modifications as part of the upgrade.

○          The Clerk’s Office was looking at a July/August implementation timeframe.

Roger Trca, Clerk’s Office IG and Audit Director, stated that it would be difficult to assume what issues the IG would take on as a primary responsibility. He added that the Clerk’s existing preaudit role should not overlap the IG’s role.

V.                    ADVISORY BOARD TRAINING (PATTY)

Patty Hindle, Board of County Commissioners (BCC) Agenda Coordinator, provided the following update:

●          On or around March 16, 2010, an initial letter had been sent to 582 advisory board members, and to date, 249 responses were received.

○          Of the 249 responses, 90 percent had no contractual relationship disclosures.

○          Three resignation letters were received from advisory board members who did not want to provide disclosure at this time.

○          Next week a follow-up letter would be sent to 57 percent of the advisory board members who did not respond, informing them that they would have two weeks to complete the training.

●          On or around May 1, 2010, the list of advisory board members who did not complete the training would be provided to the BCC, with a request to determine whether any of those advisory board members should be removed from the boards.

VI.                               HUMAN RESOURCES (LEILANI)

VI.A.                            COE Executive Director

Leilani Yan, Human Resources (HR) Department Recruitment and Selection Manager, provided the following update:

●          Seven candidates were shortlisted for the executive director position.

●          The candidates had been contacted for their availability of an all-day, Saturday, April 24, 2010, interview process.

○          The candidates were also advised of the Committee on Ethics’ request to produce two additional letters of recommendation that were specifically geared to the executive director position.

●          The County’s Airport Centre Complex, HR Department Resources, had been secured for the interview process. Arrangements had been made that the HBAC (phonetic) would be present, and security was in place because April 24, 2010, was a nonbusiness day.

●          The candidates were provided with links to the County’s ethics ordinance, the ethics web page, the Code of Ethics, the travel reimbursement policy, and the job applicant travel reimbursement policy.

●          Panel members’ biographies were being compiled for the interview process.

●          Sample interview questions and written exercises were provided to the panel members.

○          The panel members had until the end of the day, February 7, 2010, to provide feedback on what the three to five interview questions and/or the written exercise should be.

●          As part of the interview process, the company that administered the predictive index had been contacted for possible inclusion of the index as an assessment tool.

●          Prior to the interview date, entities had been actively solicited to conduct the National Crime Information Center background checks on the candidates.

VI.B.               Inspector General

●          The IG Selection Committee had been contacted for their availability for two days during the first week in May.

○          Currently, May 4-5, 2010, were the agreed-upon dates.

●          The 12 shortlisted candidates were contacted to determine their availability for either date.

○          Currently, all the candidates were available, but one candidate had not yet responded.

●          The County’s Airport Centre Complex, HR Department Resources, was also secured to conduct the two-day interviews.

●          Interview times would be 10:30 a.m., May 4, 2010, and 8:00 a.m., May 5, 2010. Both days would conclude at approximately 5:00 p.m.

●          Formal invitations would be sent to all 12 candidates.

●          The same interview process could be solicited at the next IG Selection Committee meeting.

Ms. Yan stated that utilizing a two-day interview process opened the possibility that the interview questions could be made public. She suggested that the candidates could sign a pledge, agreeing not to discuss the interview contents, but she said that she would welcome other suggestions.

Brad Merriman, Assistant County Administrator, stated that the IG Selection Committee had requested that Dade County’s IG and COE Executive Director attend the April 15, 2010, IG Selection Committee meeting, to be held at 4:00 p.m., in the McEaddy Conference Room.

VI.C.               Employee Training (Davette)

Davette LaBay, HR Department Training & Organizational Development Coordinator, stated that all employee forms needed to be returned to HR by April 22, 2010. Additionally, she stated the following:

●          Many supervisors and managers chose group employee training utilizing a DVD or the County’s intranet site.

●          Currently 150 forms had been returned to HR from smaller departments.

●          Since yesterday, 5,616 people had visited the ethics website, and 448 people had visited the County’s intranet site.

VII.                  IG SPACE (AUDREY)

Audrey Wolf, Facilities Development & Operations Department Director, stated that:

●          Construction had begun on a facility.

●          All costs were in, and all contracts had been entered.

●          Construction cost was $90,314.

●          Prepermit work had been completed on March 21, 2010, and the electrical and low-voltage work was expected to be completed by March 7, 2010.

●          Work involving the drywall, the paint, the ceiling grid, the doorframes, the electrical trim, and all other trim and cleanout was expected to be completed by March 23, 2010. Furniture would be set up shortly thereafter.

●          Phone numbers had been assigned, which included a toll-free number.

●          All access would be through a card reader so everyone would need to be identified.

VIII.                 STAFF COMMENTS

Ron Harbison, CPA and COE member, stated that the main issue to consider should be that the interview process was conducted in a fair manner.

IX.                   COMMITTEE COMMENTS

Mr. Baker stated that the next IG Implementation meeting would be held on May 12, 2010, at 3:00, in the McEaddy Conference Room.

X.                    ADJOURNMENT

At 4:10 p.m., the chair declared the meeting adjourned.