Jax PFPF fund forensic audit draws scrutiny

During Monday’s meeting of the Finance Committee of the Jacksonville City Council, a discussion point was the so-called forensic audit of the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund.

Councilmen Crescimbeni and Matt Schellenberg raised concerns about the record keeping over at PFPF. Council Auditor Kirk Sherman mentioned that no one anticipated, including the independent investigator, the burdens of trying to aggregate these records. Questions have emerged as to whether or not the investigator can meet his September 30 deadline.

FloridaPolitics.com has obtained an email from COJ Ethics Director, Carla Miller, that goes into more specific detail about these questions.

“Benchmark Financial Services was hired on June 23, 2015 to do a forensic audit of the Police and Fire Pension Fund,” begins the Miller missive.

“The contract was for 3 months, $85,000, and was to end Sept. 30, 2015. Ted Siedle (Benchmark’s expert forensic auditor) requested documents from the City needed to do this audit on June 26th and he has yet to receive any of these documents.  He needs those documents in order to properly conduct his audit,” Miller added.

“Ted indicated to me today that the City was responsible for getting these documents to him from the PFPF. He also said that he had a conversation with [PFPF Director] John Keane several weeks ago and John had been given the list of requested documents and said they needed to be prioritized,” Miller continued.

“On July 27th, Ted sent a follow up request on his need for this information and was asked to prioritize the documents needed. He did so.”

He stated the following:

The overwhelming majority of the information I requested a month ago is readily available– with no effort on the part of the fund– such as the investment consultant contracts, annual performance reports, and the annual reports. (I have also requested to speak to the investment consultant and actuary to the fund; while Mr. Keane has indicated he would arrange such, there has been no interaction to date.)

“It is now August 12th and still, no documents.  It is my understanding that he will proceed with his report, without the necessary numbers.  That is not, in my opinion, a complete forensic audit,” Miller writes.

“Perhaps this will be easy and Mr. Keane already has the documents ready to go since he has had the list for some time now,” Miller’s email adds.

Given that concerns were raised during Monday’s Finance meeting about this process, it doesn’t appear that sufficient process has been made.

Expect this to be a talker during next Tuesday’s full council meeting.