B Y T E D TAY LO R
DOES EUGENE NEED AN INDEPENDENT AUDITOR?
Former elected Portland auditor talks about benefits of creating a similar office here
T
he question is no longer whether Eugene needs a
performance auditor; it’s who that auditor will an-
swer to. The group City Accountability has a mea-
sure on the May ballot for an independent, elected
auditor, and the Eugene City Council is deciding
whether it will add a competing measure for an appointed
performance auditor on the ballot.
Gary Blackmer, the recently retired director of the Or-
egon Secretary of State Audits Division, is the authority on
performance auditors in Oregon. He previously served as
the elected auditor of Portland for 10 years and the audi-
tor of Multnomah County for eight years. He was also a
consultant for the local petition initiative and has spoken
in Eugene several times, the last time on May 17 at the
downtown Eugene Public Library. Here Eugene Weekly
has compiled some of his comments from his talks.
“We know auditing saves agencies money,” Blackmer
says, answering a question on whether auditors actually
save cities money. “We calculated it all different ways at
the Oregon Secretary of State Office, and looking at three-
year averages we return about $5 for every $1 spent.” Over
time, he says, “It may get down to $2 or $3 if the auditor
is doing his or her work well and the city performance gets
better.”
Blackmer says financial audits look only at transac-
tions, while performance audits look at the end results of
spending. “A wise auditor told me we really ask only one
question: What did you do with the money?”
Auditing large departments, such as public safety and
public works, provides the largest dollar savings, he says.
Millions of dollars can be saved from reduced lawsuits,
longer lasting street paving, stricter contractor compliance,
better bidding processes, eliminated redundancies, reduced
turnover and training costs, more efficient office technol-
ogy and systems, and more.
Cost reductions of just 1 percent in Eugene’s $83.5
million public safety budget would save $835,000 a year,
GARY BLACKMER
more than covering the auditor office’s proposed budget of
about $677,000.
As to why someone like unelected City Manager Jon
Ruiz can’t just audit the city he’s charged with running:
“Auditors have a lot of refined tools,” Blackmer says. “We
bring a lot of expertise to departments. Smaller organiza-
tions do not have the kinds of tools that auditors have.”
New department heads can benefit greatly, he says, by an
unbiased examination of their departments.
“We focus on front-line staff. We talk to people and ask
about the biggest problems they face in getting their jobs
done. And we don’t just take their word for it. We do the
analysis and look at how we can help these folks do a bet-
ter job.”
“I tell agency heads that we have just one mission, and
that is to help them achieve their mission,” he says.
Then there is the question of trust in government. “Peo-
ple put more faith in an auditor than in a police chief, the
head of a health agency or the head of fleet management,”
Blackmer says. “They trust auditors and they are more
confident in projects if they know the auditor has looked
at it first.”
Adding to trust, Blackmer says, is the auditor’s public ho-
tline for reporting fraud and inefficiencies. Transparency is
also a hallmark of an independent city auditor — all reports
are posted online.
If auditing is about access to information, then why
not just rely on Eugene’s journalists to bird dog the city?
“There’s not a lot of difference between a good performance
audit and a good newspaper story,” Blackmer replies. “But
there are fewer and fewer reporters today and newspapers
are getting thinner and thinner — you’re getting less sense of
what’s going on in your government.”
Blackmer has hired several former newspaper reporters.
“They are good interviewers, they can knock out an audit
in no time, they have a nose for stories and they understand
what’s important to the public.” He says city auditors have ac-
cess to confidential contracts and other information not avail-
able to the press and can “get behind the curtain to see what’s
actually happening.”
Blackmer points to some successes Portland has had in us-
ing auditors, such as using sophisticated technology to test the
quality of new street paving in Portland and finding that “83
percent of the streets that were paved did not meet the stan-
dards set for the contractors.” Blackmer also uncovered an as-
phalt billing error that recovered $76,000 for the city treasury.
When park maintenance in Portland was audited, it was
noted that “visionary” park directors were focused on acquir-
ing and designing new parks. “Maintenance just never got the
money,” Blackmer says. The auditor recommending setting
aside 5 percent of the value of the parks each year for mainte-
nance, and making sure the department keeps up with repairs.
Finally, an audit of sexual assault cases uncovered “a pret-
ty horrendous situation,” Blackmer says. Some officers were
very unsympathetic to victims, and the department was not
following best practices established by the Oregon attorney
general.
A City Council vote on whether to pursue a competing
measure was not scheduled as of press time.
KINNINNICK, ARCTO-
STAPHYLOS UVA-URSI
IT’S ABOUT TIME
BY D AV I D WA G N E R
D
ec. 21 marks the solstice, the traditional
beginning of winter. In most of the northern
hemisphere this means a quiet, cold time of the
year, but in western Oregon it signifies the
beginning of our alternate growing season. All the plants
that require watering by rainfall begin their peak growth
period; lichens, mosses and liverworts are the most
prominent.
The licorice fern, which inhabits the tree bark
community along with mosses, shares this cycle. A
typical frond produces four to five million spores before
falling from tree branches by late spring. The evergreen
8
December 7, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
sword fern stores energy all winter. Pruning fronds now
will keep it smaller and tidy in garden landscapes.
Incense cedar cones will drop this month, clogging
untended gutters already full of Douglas fir needles.
Threat of freezing periods incites us to attend to closing
crawlspace vents and protecting outdoor faucets to
prevent burst pipes.
Winter waterfowl migrants have returned to ponds and
reservoirs. Buffleheads, widgeons, gadwalls, ringnecks
and teal make sighting a dozen species on a short walk
easy. Head to high vistas along the coast to see
southbound gray whales. Fortunate are those who can
leave on short notice when the occasional sunny day
presents itself.
Clear nights make for excellent stargazing because
nightfall comes early. Orion is high in the sky at bedtime.
The big dipper is close to the horizon, where it appears it
might hold water. It is hard to see in town as urban lights
obscure that part of the sky.
David Wagner is a botanist who has worked in Eugene for 40 years.
He teaches moss classes, leads nature walks and has made the 2018
Oregon Nature Calendar. It is available at Down to Earth in Eugene or
by contacting him directly at fernzenmosses@me.com.