Professor Elam

The Express News now supports an external audit of the Police Dept.   Please read the article, it is not about money but procedure. I put this one up to get you thinking that auditing is not necessarily about adding up strings of numbers to see if they total checks. These days it is about procedure, benchmarking the best procedure to assure top results. 

The article states that internal audits are too slow. My guess is that is not the problem with the internal audit, I suspect the internal audit lacks enough clout to effect real change. If the City spends a quarter of a million on an external audit, that will carry some weight, just guessing but that is my take.

Note that an accounting firm will be chosen to conduct a procedural audit of a large city police department. Accounting is a diverse and growing field. 

Come to think of it, here is an example of what I mean. Someone  got the staff over ruled and substituted another towing firm for a city contract. Now look at the results. It often takes an outright failure or an outside expensive source to overcome internal strife, in any organization.