Seriously, who pulls a Voucher Report?

At last Thursday’s regular City Council Meeting you saw me, for the first time, get truly fed up. In the past, I’ve tried only to react only to the most severe attacks. But the events of last week caused me to do something I never expected to do. I pulled the Voucher Report from the Consent Agenda and voted against the City’s official check run–something I can’t recall ever seeing any elected do in any government setting over 600+ meetings.

Friday June 3, 2022

As happens every month, I received the Voucher Report from our Accounts Payable clerk. It’s been almost a month since our last meeting, the number of bills had piled up. So the list was over 400 items and totaled $5.7 million dollars.

Since our municipal code requires we vote to approve this list, I reviewed them. And as I occasionally do, I sent an email to the clerk asking politely to see the underlying invoices.

I was stunned to receive a reply back from the City Manager.

Councilmember Harris,

Your continued insistence on violating the law of the State of Washington is nothing less than disappointing.  I have expressed to you multiple times that your engagement with City staff can be intimidating and is essentially illegal.  I remind you of the following from the State of Washington Revised Code [RCW 35.18.110 City manager—Interference by councilmembers] that explicitly states,

“the council and its members shall deal with the administrative service solely through the manager and neither the council nor any committee or member thereof shall give orders to any  subordinate of the city manager, either publicly or privately.”

Your email below is a direct request for action by City staff and will not stand.

I wrote back:

From: JC Harris <jcharris@desmoineswa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 1:17 PM
To: Michael Matthias <MMatthias@desmoineswa.gov>
Cc: Tim George <TGeorge@desmoineswa.gov>
Subject: Re: June 9th Voucher Certification & Reports

I was asking for invoice copies to support vouchers I am being asked to vote for in excess of $5.7M. Are you saying a member of the City Council is not entitled to see those invoices?

---JC

And I received back:

I will not under any conditions aid and abet you in violating the laws of the State of Washington, which govern your role as a Councilmember.  If you wish to review invoices you can request that of me directly and I will provide the opportunity for you to physically come to City Hall and review hard copies of the invoices and Bonnie will provide appropriate oversight while you review the documents.

Michael Matthias
City Manager 
City of Des Moines, WA
206.870.6554
mmatthias@desmoineswa.gov

This was entirely new. In the past, I would simply receive PDFs from the A/P Clerk. And just so you don’t think this is some unusual request, here is the justification from the State Auditor’s Office (SAO) Budgeting, Accounting and Reporting System (BARS) GAAP Manual.

Regardless, to try to judge how ‘difficult’ I was being, I went through my records and in my two and one half years on the Council I’ve asked for no more than forty invoice copies out of over ten thousand checks I’ve scrolled through.

And just to be triple sure, I contacted Municipal Resource and Services Center (MRSC) for confirmation which is listed in the footnotes. Ironically, their legal advisor recommends a conversation with the City Attorney, which I am forbidden from having–unless the City Manager approves, of course. 😀

But… what-ehveeeeer. I scheduled an appointment for noon on Thursday–the day of our City Council Meeting.

Thursday, June 9, 2022

I show up to the North Conference Room, assuming I’d get a stack of bills. Nope. Instead, I’m presented with a list of files on the big screen TV. I was told that I had to review them using the supplied keyboard. I could request copies (via Public Records Request) for later. And I had to be monitored during my stay because otherwise I might access other parts of the network.

As some of you know (including the City Manager), I have a ₂visual disability, which makes it impractical for me to use a standard computer. I have a variety of eyeglasses I use to get around. I can ‘pass’ so long as I’m prepared for each specific situation. If not, to onlookers it can appear a bit comical, but for me it can be unpleasant.

So as our City Clerk sat there checking her phone, I go back and forth, one bill at a time, clicking the mouse, then walking up to the big screen on the wall, attempting to recognise the image, walking back to the keyboard, and skipping to the next item. Hilarious.

And after half an hour struggling through what should have been a five minute task, I left. Did I have questions? Of course. But there was no opportunity to ask questions. There never is.

Awkward

I rarely speak about vouchers because according to staff, I am literally the only CM who ever requests to see any invoices. If my colleagues feel OK with approving the list with no review, that is their choice, of course. But it is unthinkable to me that any finance director would not cheerfully offer invoice copies if the final approver asked on occasion.

• The City Manager said that I’d be looking at hard copies.
• But like any modern business, the City scans vendor bills into their system.  I caused no scanning work for staff.
• I was told the PDFs could not be emailed to me because of their size. Despite  the fact that I have received large batches of files via batch service (similar to Dropbox) which the City provides for public records requests or thumb drives.
• And since I was told I’d be looking at hard copies, I did not bring the correct eyeglasses to accommodate my visual disability.
• So the City Clerk had to sit with me while I struggled through all that because supposedly there was no way to create a protected folder to keep me from breaking into the rest of the network. Like some spy movie. Or maybe Windows 98.
• Afterwards, I asked the City Clerk how long it took to prepare that folder. I was told was that doing so took the clerk between 30 and 60 minutes to prepare. And I don’t know what to do about that because my company wrote accounting software–and with every serious product we worked with it would take like five minutes. And the City just bought new accounting software this year.
• But regardless, I did ask for some reasonable explanation. I wish there could be some kind of dialogue to avoid these situations.

This wasn’t the usual obstruction. It didn’t just waste my time, it wasted the valuable time of one our highest paid staff members. And failing to provide a simple accommodation made me physically uncomfortable and required me to take medication to continue the rest of the day’s meetings–which I also do not appreciate.

Fixing it

I want to again point out that our City Council is 100% majoritarian. If a councilmember has any concern as to the functioning of any aspect of the administration it takes four votes to take any action. So it is the case that, although I am required to review the bills, if the City Manager chooses not to cooperate, there is no enforcement mechanism beyond asking my colleagues to do the right thing.

It is unfortunate, and extremely awkward, to point out that not one of my colleagues supported me on this. Even though at least one has noticeable vision and hearing loss. I leave it to the reader to decide why that might be.

Regardless, the failure to provide a reasonable accommodation to any employee, let alone an elected, is another matter entirely.

And one last thing. The City has already started its annual auditing process with the SAO. We will receive their report in the autumn as part of our budgeting process and I fully expect that the report will once again be very good. The Administration uses these reports as an imprimatur of transparency and good government. But issues such as councilmember review are never a part of their audits. State audits only make sure that money is collected and disbursed according to state law.

Everything else is left to the oversight (four votes) of the  City Council.

---

₁Unlike my colleagues, I am not allowed to speak to the City Attorney.

₂A form of Neural Binocular Diplopia. I have asked for accommodations before and been denied. But who wants to be the Councilmember who files an HR claim against his own City, right?

From: Jill Dvorkin
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 1:59 PM
To: JC Harris <jcharris@desmoineswa.gov>
Subject: Inquiry re: review of voucher report and supporting invoices

Hello JC,

Below is an inquiry and response written by my colleague Oskar Rey. Similar guidance has been provided by our finance consultants, as well.

Prior Inquiry and Response 19-0674:

Inquiry (by phone):

What is the role of the Council in reviewing City finances? Is it required to review and sign off on vouchers, or may it rely on the Finance Director to certify the accounts?

Response (by email):

MRSC has fielded a number of inquiries on this topic over the years.  There are a range of options available to Councils with respect to the amount of information they receive when approving claims and vouchers.  The thing to remember is that it is not the Council’s role to certify payroll or vouchers.  That is done by the “auditing officer” which can be a finance director or a finance committee of the Council.

Here is an inquiry I responded to in 2017 on the issue of what level of detail needs to be set forth for voucher approval in a council agenda:

The Council should approve all claims and vouchers, but there is not a state law requirement that each voucher appear in the agenda packet.  RCW 35A.12.170 provides that all demands against a code city shall be presented and audited [by the finance director or treasurer] in accordance with regulations prescribed by charter or ordinance.  RCW 42.24.080 also sets forth some overlapping provisions on presentment of claims.

Neither of these provisions explicitly require council approval vouchers and claims, but MRSC has taken the position that council approval is a best-practice and the SAO expects it. It is also implied by RCW 42.24.180 and RCW 35A.33.125. Finally, have a look at the voucher certification procedures in the BARS Manual.  Section 3.8.5.40 sets forth the minimum information required for a council to approve claim vouchers and payroll. It does not require a list of individual vouchers.

Pursuant to Des Moines Municipal Code  Section 3.28.020, the finance director is the auditing officer for purposes of compliance with RCW 42.24.080. The next code section, DMMC Section 3.28.030, describes the presentation of such warrants, checks, and payroll transfers to the council.  

1I recommend discussing all of these issues with your City Attorney. Our guidance is general and not intended to substitute for the advice of the city’s legal counsel—who is in the best position to advise on specific questions.