While Richmond City Council debates an expanded role for the City Auditor's Office, the auditor is just looking for enough help to do the job he has now.

City Auditor Umesh V. Dalal is delaying at least two major audits of city government and the school system because he is losing staff at the same time the council and Mayor L. Douglas Wilder are adding to his workload.

The auditor's office is operating with five people -- half the number budgeted for an office that has become an aggressive investigator into government waste, inefficiency and, sometimes, fraud.

"We have a serious staffing issue in our office," Dalal told the council's Government Operations Committee yesterday.
The auditor's office is delaying scheduled audits of how grants are administered by city government and the school system, and whether to consolidate the programs to save money.

At the same time, the auditor has taken on more work by assisting the council's investigation of Wilder's attempt to evict the School Board from City Hall on Sept. 21, and responding to the mayor's demand for a corresponding investigation into the costly reloca-tion of the school system's information technology department from City Hall last summer.

"We are constrained by staff," said Dalal, who added that he is having difficulty hiring people to fill empty positions because of pay, competition with state government and concern over political turmoil at City Hall.

The staffing problem arises at the same time the council is considering creating an inspector general's office within the auditor's office, raising concerns about how to insulate both offices from political influence without changing the City Charter.

Under the charter, the auditor is hired by the council and can be fired without cause, but a proposed council ordinance would create an independent oversight committee that would have the power to fire the new inspector general with cause.

Chief Administrative Officer Sheila Hill-Christian proposed yesterday that the inspector general's office be an independent office that would be appointed by the mayor with the council's consent. Similarly, she proposed that the inspector general could be removed for cause by the mayor with the council's approval.

Committee Chairman Bruce W. Tyler, 1st District, said a change in the charter might be necessary at some point to ensure that the auditor is protected from being fired without cause, and works equally for the council and the mayor.
"We need to make sure there's balance," Tyler said.

Council President William J. Pantele had proposed the creation of the inspector general's office to investigate potential criminal cases of fraud and abuse in city government. Currently, Dalal's office defers to law-enforcement agencies to handle those cases after an initial investigation. The council included $200,000 in this year's budget to create the office.

However, the need for the new office has gotten mixed reaction from council members, the Wilder administration and even two self-appointed citizen advocates who speak frequently at public meetings. Oregon Hill activist Silver Persinger favored the inspector general proposal yesterday, while Luis J. Pantophlet Jr. opposed it.

"Mr. Dalal has the ability to do it now under the charter," Pantophlet said. "Therefore, this paper is not necessary."

Councilman E. Martin Jewell, 5th District, the mayor's most reliable council ally, said he, too, is troubled by the proposal. "I don't want to give away any prerogative council has" to hire and fire the auditor, he said.

But Jewell also was sympathetic to the auditor's need for more staff to do the job that the council and mayor expect him to do.
"You've got a tough job," he told Dalal. "We have you looking under every bush almost."

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964