This story is an excellent example of the importance of an investigative media that pursued an issue because the public leadership, whose charge it was, clearly didn’t.
A very good thing, for all of us.
Editorial: Accountability time for library system officials
Can those who let contracting scandal develop now restore the public's trust?
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, October 5, 2007
If not for Diane Boerman, a conscientious accounts payable clerk with the Sacramento Public Library, a scam that cost our library system hundreds of thousands of dollars would probably still be in place.
Boerman went to her bosses back in 2005 to report apparent inflation of bills for routine maintenance work at branch libraries all over the county. The bills submitted by an outside firm lacked basic documentation such as work orders, records of hours worked and receipts for materials used. Boerman blamed suspiciously high bills on Hagginwood Services Inc., a firm the library hired in 2004 to process invoices for handyman work.
No one in charge, including Director Anne Marie Gold, acted on Boerman's complaint until last summer, after The Bee's Christina Jewett filed a public records act request. Billing records obtained by The Bee showed that Hagginwood routinely added hours and doubled or tripled the charges contractors submitted.
After The Bee raised questions the library launched its own probe. The resulting report documents gross mismanagement and possible criminal fraud. The findings should alarm and disgust patrons and embarrass the library's top managers. Given the extent of the problems uncovered, local elected officials responsible for oversight should question whether current managers are capable of running this $36 million annual enterprise or restoring the public's trust.
