Nothing to see here, move along. So says the Pilot daily paper.

When you compare the WATE story to the two KNS stories, you are confronted with the usual KNS omissions and editorial inside baseball nonsense.

KNS reports that Walls had it coming.

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"Walls has been a controversial figure in county government. He publicly clashed with former Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale. His work has come under fire by the Audit Committee as well.

Carcello said there have been concerns about both the “quantity” of his work and “the quality.”

“There have been concerns about Richard’s performance for an extended period of time,” Carcello said.

Among the concerns, he said, were that Walls spent too much time auditing “areas that were not really high risk” and often failed to try to reconcile his findings with the responses of those he was auditing before issuing a report."

Nice work KNS. Thought the editorial content was supposed to be in the Opinion section. Apparently not.

But WATE gives some real details.

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"Commissioner Shouse told 6 News that Walls only completed three audits last year, but the expectation is that five or six would be completed.

Those audits include investigations into the Beck Cultural Center, Hardin Valley building expense and an ethics audit.

Shouse also said that Walls didn't look into areas where the county is most at risk financially, such as the Trustee's office and the school system due to its large budget.

Knox County Trustee John Duncan III recently stepped down from his position as trustee after pleading guilty to official misconduct over a bonus scandal in which he paid both himself and others for online courses they never took."

A real reporter might have a question to ask, can Richard Walls go audit anything he wants? Like an Inspector General? Or can Walls only audit what he is told to audit by the Audit Committee and County Commission? If that is the case, did Commissioner Shouse just slander Richard Walls in his comments to WATE?

If my memory is correct, Walls was never instructed to audit the Trustee's office or the School Board. Not by the Audit Committee nor County Commission. Mayor Mike Ragsdale is long gone, but his vendetta against Richard Walls lives on thanks to the same corruption that was in the City County Building back in the lobster to go days.

County Commission should vote to keep Richard Walls and then instruct him to audit both the Trustee's Office and the School Board. And Joe Carcello should be forced to prove his statements against Richard Walls. How can you hold someone accountable for audits they were not ordered to do?

If you know a real reporter, pass this on to them.

The Charter clearly states that the authority of ALL audit functions lies in the Audit Committee.

The financial audits that occur annually are done by the external auditors, Pugh & Co., KPMG, Rodefer Moss, etc.

The internal audits have primarily related to performance audits.

Walls submits an annual work plan and status reports to the the Audit Committee. Additionally, he submits employee evaluations of his staff to the Audit Committee for final approval. The last evaluation signed off by the Audit Committee for Mr. Walls was for the calendar year 2008.

If there was a problem with the "quality" of his work why not document that in an employee evaluation or why not mention it during any number of audit committee meetings?

About the "quantity" of his work, that's the Audit Committee's responsibility, Walls takes direction from them. There are annual or reoccurring performance reviews or other work that is required that is known by Mr. Walls and included in his annual work plan that is then turned in to the Audit Committee for their approval.

The Audit Committee determines the workload.

If there are complaints about the Internal Auditor not looking into "high-risk" areas, it begs the question was he directed to? It seems odd that the internal Auditor would be asked to review the financials for the Trustee's office when External Auditors, Pugh & Co. and KPMG were contracted by the Audit Committee to perform this very same work.

From the Knox County Charter

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Sec. 2-275. - Audit committee.

An audit committee shall be established by the county commission to provide oversight and direction of the audit function. The primary responsibility of the audit committee shall be to oversee all audit activities, from the selection of the auditors to the resolution of audit findings. The audit committee will have access to the work papers and reports of the auditors, as well as access to audit work plans.

Sec. 2-281. - Coordination through audit committee.

All audits, reviews and limited examinations (to include all funds and account groups of the county as well as its component units) shall be coordinated through the audit committee. This includes, but is not limited to the annual independent audit by certified public accountants of the accounts of the county and of every county office. (Sec 2.02.B. of the Charter of Knox County, Tennessee).

(Ord. No. O-02-8-105, § 9, 9-23-02; Ord. No. O-10-3-104, § 3, 4-26-10)

Seriously? Pilot? Anders? Walls?

Who watches the watchers?

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From WBIR:
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(WBIR - Knoxville) Tuesday the Knox County Audit Committee officially recommended firing the county's long-time internal auditor.

The committee voted 4-to-1 in favor of asking the County Commission to fire Richard Walls. Committee members say Walls did not do anything illegal or inappropriate. However, it is what Walls did not do while performing the auditor's duties that makes some committee members think he should be replaced.

"All the problems in the Trustees Office stands out to me the most. Richard [Walls] was never up there," said Ed Shouse, a Knox County Commissioner who serves on the Audit Committee. "He was never in the Trustee's Office looking through anything."

Last week Knox County Trustee John Duncan III abruptly resigned and pleaded guilty to official misconduct for paying himself and other employees bonuses for coursework they never completed.

"He [Walls] was not even used when John Duncan left last week to do the exit audit. We paid an outside firm something like $15,000 to do it," said Shouse.

DID THE AUDIT COMMITTEE EVER DIRECT WALLS TO LOOK INTO THE TRUSTEE'S OFFICE?

DID ANYONE CALL WALLS? HOW CAN WALLS BE CRITICIZED FOR NOT DOING A JOB THAT HE WAS NOT DIRECTED TO PERFORM AND ANOTHER FIRM WAS ALREADY CONTRACTED FOR?

From Knoxville News Sentinel:
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Knox County Finance Director Chris Caldwell on Monday released an email in which Pugh CPAs Vice President Larry Elmore outlined the process of reviewing an office.

The audit was explained in detail in Elmore’s email. Caldwell had called the auditor before Duncan’s plea to see what needed to be done that day.

“We decided that we needed to be on site at the (City County Building) when that happened in order to immediately achieve a good cutoff of transactions and access to records, etc.,” Elmore wrote.

Marcellus said to Horatio.." Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." -(Hamlet 1.4.90)
Would big M smell something in the Walls matter? I really like Joe Carcello and Ed Shouse, but something just doesn't add up here.The stated reasons for firing Walls seem contrived.He didn't do some work that he was not told to do. It is said that there have been concerns about Richard’s performance for an extended period of time.However, there has not been an employee review/evaluation of Walls since 2008.Ed and Joe, please come forward and explain this.Please help avoid the appearance of a political operation.KNS where are you?

Last week Knox County Trustee John Duncan III abruptly resigned...

The guy'd been under investigation for more than a year. Define abrupt.

Looks like Bud Armstrong needs to study the Open Meetings law.

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"Our evaluation of it is there is a question of whether there was some clarity in the actual topic being discussed. My opinion is it was satisfactory," said Law Director Armstrong.

Old Bud is wrong. How do you say that Bud after the office of Open Records in Nashville sends you a letter telling you the law was broken?

More here with amazing video proving the Sunshine Law was broken:

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Mary Kiser should be applauded for standing up for what's right. And Gene Patterson did a great interview.

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That looks like a violation to me. All to fire a guy who they didn't supervise. The only person on the Audit Committee who has ever done an audit, Mary Kiser, was excluded from deliberation to fix the vote. Walls should sue the county. And Carcello individually.

Amy Broyles shouldn't be in judgement of Richard Walls or anyone else.

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Sunshine Law and Campaign Finance violations and she wants to fire Richard Walls and cost him his pension just because Walls caught Tom Salter in malfeasance. Tom Salter still has his job. Completely unethical and without any conscience.

Broyles serves until 2016. This Commissioner should be recalled.

From the very first post on this thread (Observer, July 10):

Among the concerns, (Carcello) said, were that Walls spent too much time auditing “areas that were not really high risk” and often failed to try to reconcile his findings with the responses of those he was auditing before issuing a report."

I don't profess to know much about Walls' performance in recent years, but I distinctly recall that at the launch of the Ragsdale investigation Walls did, indeed, release to media his draft audit of former County Finance Director John Werner's so-called hospitality fund prior to giving Werner or the Mayor's Office an opportunity to respond to his findings.

I also distinctly recall discussing off-list with two KV regulars the impropriety of his doing this. Those KV "regulars" are still "regulars," so I'll depend on them to confirm my recollection if they're inclined. The three of us were quite surprised by Walls' action.

My comment on it now is not suggest that Walls' findings were suspect, you understand, as I think we're now all aware of problems with that so-called hospitality fund.

My comment now is only to point out that his release of the draft audit to media, in advance of his having allowed the subjects of the audit to read his findings, was most definitely in violation of internal auditing standards.

Whether he routinely violated this standard, I don't know, but his violation of it WRT the hospitality fund audit may be documented in the pdf file that accompanied the KNS story on the indicent, somewhere in their (2007?) archives.