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City council directs clerk to publish forensic audit online after redactions
Summary
The East Point City Council voted Aug. 18 to post the recently completed forensic audit on the city website by Aug. 19 after legally required redactions, and designated the city attorney and city manager as the official points of contact for follow-up questions.
The East Point City Council voted Monday to publish the forensic audit it commissioned earlier this year, directing city staff to post a version with legally required redactions to the city website by close of business Aug. 19.
Council members said the decision responds to repeated public requests for access to the report and follows a period of back-and-forth between the city and the firm that prepared the audit, Plante Moran. Council member Tremaine Mitchell made the motion, which Council member Butler seconded; the motion passed after two friendly amendments that required legal redactions and named the city manager and city attorney as the points of contact for future questions.
The vote came after multiple public commenters urged transparency. Resident Ralph Berry read portions of the city’s ethics code and asked council to ensure the public could review the audit’s substance. Council member Mark Rogers and others said they wanted staff to present recommendations at a September work session and to avoid piecemeal questions from individual council members. City Manager Michael Jones agreed to present staff’s status on the audit recommendations at the Sept. 8 work session.
Council members also debated how to handle follow-up communications with the auditor. Council member Leah Ziegler and others recommended that the city manager be permitted to contact Plante Moran directly to help the city prepare the staff presentation; a friendly amendment to name both the city attorney and the city manager as official points of contact was adopted.
City Attorney Nicole Wiggins told the council that the original engagement letter addressed to the previous city attorney specified that communications during the engagement would go through the city attorney’s office. She recommended a single, consistent channel for questions so responses would be coordinated. Wiggins also advised that individual utility account numbers in the audit must be redacted under state law; staff confirmed the two account numbers flagged in the report were individual residential accounts and would be removed in the public version.
Plante Moran, the auditor, had responded to several written questions by email but declined to make a planned in-person presentation after a council member asked about scope expansion. Council members expressed disappointment that the firm would not appear in person despite having been paid for the work. City Manager Jones said the firm has offered written responses and the city would pursue clarity in advance of the Sept. 8 staff presentation.
The council’s action Monday directs the clerk’s office to prepare and post the redacted report and directs that further audit-related questions be routed to the city manager or the city attorney. Staff also committed to presenting, for each audit recommendation, what the city has done or plans to do at the Sept. 8 work session, and to include any clarifying communications from the auditor as available.
Council members did not ask staff to withhold any non-legally protected material beyond required redactions; the motion specified only "necessary legal redactions." The council approved the motion by voice vote; the clerk will publish the redacted document on Aug. 19 and log any incoming open-records requests.
