Question 1: How would you describe the role and responsibilities of the City Controller in Philadelphia, and why is this role important?
The most important responsibilities of the Office of the City Controller are serving as the chief auditor for the city and rooting out fraud waste and abuse. These responsibilities are the key to the City Controller holding city government accountable and ensuring that taxpayer money is used in an efficient and effective manner. As an independently elected official my office has the authority to audit and investigate every city department including other independently elected city officials.
Other responsibilities include:
- Serve on the Board of Pensions and Retirement, which oversees the management of investments and the payment of benefits;
- Serve on the Philadelphia Gas Commission, which approves the Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) operating budget and short-term financing, and reviews and recommends PGW’s capital budget to City Council;
- Serve as a member of the Sinking Fund Commission, which oversees investment of revenues paid into a sinking fund for payment of bond principal and interest and investment of the PGW Retirement Reserve;
- Serve as a member of the Bond Committee, which approves bond issues. The City Controller certifies the City of Philadelphia’s debt capacity and the capital nature and useful life of projects built with bond proceeds;
- Serve as auditor of the Philadelphia School District;
- Evaluate the reasonableness of the assumptions and estimates in the City’s Five Year Plan forPICA; and
- Investigate accusations of mismanagement and fraud by City agencies, employees and/or contractors.
The role of City Controller is important because the Controller serves as an independent check of accountability on all city government agencies, elected official and quasi-governmental organizations. As the financial watchdog I believe it is also critically important that all of our reports, audits and investigations are made available for our residents to review. As a government, we have to earn the trust of our residents and the Controller plays a key role in earning that trust.
Question 2: What are your most important accomplishments from your first term?
The core function of the Office of the City Controller is the audit function and I am proud to have used the audit function to shine a light on issues that need to be fixed. I have stood up to the entrenched powers even when it is tough as we need change for our city government to truly work for the people of our city. One example of this is my office’s audit of internal controls, which showed in 2018 that the city had not audited its largest cash account in three years (it’s supposed to be reconciled daily) and that $33 million was unaccounted for, or missing. My office went back and did the same audit in 2019 and 2020 to see if any improvement had been made, and there has been some improvement in internal controls – the city is now reconciling its largest cash account and the majority of the $33 million was located – but the city still has the worst internal controls of the top ten largest cities. This is not acceptable, and I will keep pushing for change and improvement.
Secondly, since being sworn in as Controller, we have received 2x the number of fraud complaints from residents as the previous administration. This is not an indication that fraud has doubled in a short period of time but rather that concerned residents believe that my office will investigate their concerns. My office has investigated every complaint that has been submitted through our website or the fraud hotline. One such investigation, was my office’s investigation into the procurement of new voting machines. This investigation was the result of residents contacting my office and voicing their concerns about the procurement. As a result of the investigation, the vendor paid a $2.9 million penalty, the largest penalty ever recovered by the City of Philadelphia.
Lastly, I am exceedingly proud of my office leaning into social justice issues, specifically the issue of gun violence in our city. As public servants, we need to lean in and propose solutions to our city’s most pressing problems. In my role as Controller, we first analyzed the cost of gun violence, highlighting the effects gun violence has on property values and therefore revenue for the city. Since that report we have expanded our work around gun violence, including launching a map that shows the shootings and homicides across the city and includes all relevant data points. This tool shows the locations of shootings, denoting fatal and non-fatal shootings, annually since 2015 as well as incidents with associated court cases. My office believes that this interactive map can help better understand trends in Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis and rising homicides.
Question 3: What plans and priorities do you have for a second term?
In my first term we have used these core functions to explore issues that are most important to Philadelphians. In my second term, I will continue to use the audit function to expose problem and issues that prevent our city from delivering the services and functions our residents deserve. I will also continue to use my voice to speak out against social injustices and use my authority as controller to shine a light on the root causes of these issues and develop solutions, both short term and long term, to address these issues.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I will continue to hold all of our city officials and departments accountable to further build our resident’s confidence in our local government. Philadelphia is an amazing city, with amazing people and we all deserve a government that is equally as amazing.