The Prince William Board of County Supervisors is expected to vote Tuesday to eliminate the county’s internal auditor department and outsource the work to a contractor, a move that critics charge would deprive the county of an internal, independent watchdog.
In a strongly worded memo, the county’s auditing department said the plan would undercut the county’s credibility and bring in outsiders who are not familiar with the complicated workings of the government, which has an operating budget of $914 million.
“The public should be able to have confidence that there is a genuinely independent internal audit function,” read the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
If the job is outsourced, “taxpayers will never be able to count on learning the truth about what may be going wrong in the county.” The memo also said the plan “would give taxpayers the impression of a county’s desire to not shed light on potentially embarrassing audit findings that could also look bad to regulators or rating agencies.”
