Wallace purged sanitation district documents

December 15, 2014
Julie Tacker

Julie Tacker

OPINION By JULIE TACKER

To audit or not to audit? That is the question at the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District (SSLOCSD).

An audit may find accounting inaccuracies and/or other wrongdoing.

At this point, with so many questions left unanswered since the Feb. 2013 resignation of District Administrator — of 27 years — John Wallace, it would be prudent to examine what really happened to the district’s reserves. Millions of dollars in reserves were gradually depleted over the course of ten years; among the expenses was nearly $276,000 for engineering costs associated with the 2010 spill.

These monies were paid to Wallace’s engineering firm to prepare the administrative record for the water board hearing in Sept. 2012, in an effort to defend the district from punitive damages and damage to Wallace’s own reputation.

Once gone from SSLOCSD, it took four full months for Wallace to relinquish district files he had stored at his engineering office in San Luis Obispo. These files were the property of the district and should have been kept on site in the SSLOCSD district offices at the wastewater treatment plant in Oceano.
An audit may include delving into the very boxes Wallace himself charged $98.00 an hour to “review.” But that was after his staff of engineers and administrative assistants billed $42 to $108 per hour over four months to catalogue, label and box.

Invoices totaling over $15,000 describe tasks associated with returning the districts records to new management as “transition.” The invoices detail tasks such as; filing, document preparation, organize, reorganize, accumulate, label, purge and gutting binders.

An audit at this point will likely find that there are gaping holes in the district’s record. But, no one but Wallace really knows what was in those files before they left the SSLOCSD offices. There is no way for current staff to know if all pertinent and important material was returned.

The fact that district records may have been intentionally “purged” or “gutted” in any way gives rise to the argument in favor of a forensic audit. That the district actually paid Wallace/Wallace Group to do it is outrageous.

The new board members, Jim Hill and John Shoals need to take a fresh look at what’s gone on at SSLOCSD, identify it, take action accordingly and put measures in place so that it never happens again.


Loading...
34 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Johnny got run over by a reindeer

Walkin’ home from the sewer plant on Christmas eve

You can say there’s no such thing as Karma

But as for me and Arroyo, we believe


He’d been chargn’ too much for his sewer service

And we’d begged him not screw us anymore

But he’d left us with spill litigation

So he stumbled out the door and said he had to go


When they found him Christmas mornin’

At the scene of the attack

There were hoof prints on his forehead

And incriminatin’ Claus marks on his back


Johnny got run over by a reindeer

Walkin’ home from the sewer plant on Christmas eve

You can say there’s no such thing as Karma

But as for me and Arroyo, we believe


Now were all so proud of Mayor Jim

He’s been takin’ this so well

See him in there tryn’ to fix things

While sayn’ what the hell….


Johnny got run over by a reindeer

Walkin’ home from the sewer plant on Christmas eve

You can say there’s no such thing as Karma

But as for me and Arroyo, we believe


Most likely the new SSLOCSD board will call for an ‘AUDIT’.


But will it be an ‘operational audit’, ‘forensic audit’ or ….


JUST LIKE THE RECENT SECOND COSTLY INVESTIGATION IN ARROYO GRANDE THAT TURNED UP NOTHING!


You can bet there are too many powerful and connected people that will allow ANY meaningful discovery even though they went from years of being drastically in the RED to miraculously in the BLACK almost overnight.


The cost of investigation is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s at risk. The district is running in the black because they’ve done their own investigations, hired on some new professionals, and addressed some of the “low-hanging fruit” issues that weren’t addressed before. What makes you think that the same approach won’t work again?


Once again, you hit it out of the park, Julie!