Municipal Fraud Prevention Part 3 of 3 - Have checks and balances, and routinely ask yourself if loopholes exist - Cheap comes out expensive, hire external auditors, forensic accountants, and certified fraud examiners - Turnover in your finance department isn’t always a bad thing- in some cases, an extensive level of familiarity breeds corruption - [...]
Municipal Fraud Prevention- West Linn Part 2 of 3 The current West Linn Finance Department (after the 1.42 million dollar scandal), much like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, crafted a new mission statement. The forward moving department proclaims proudly “being good stewards of taxpayers’ monies is the Finance Department’s main focus, but that alone [...]
Municipal Fraud- West Linn Part 1 of 3 Municipal fraud is all around us explains Richard Seals CFE, CPA, CMA in his recent article: From First to Worst in Fraud-Magazine. http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294977156 West Linn, Oregon’s former city finance director, Elma Magkamit, was a compulsive gambler. She also lied about being both a college graduate and a [...]
As moneys become tight and budgets continue to be squeezed, financial vigilance must be increased. Anti-fraud controls must be developed. Systems must continue to be reviewed and analyzed to reduce the chance of fraud. This problem at the Santa Clara Unified School District may have been averted with proper internal oversight. The link will also [...]
This time is was $900k being separated from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. What's killing me it that it was the CFO. Another clue, from the article "...she liked to play the slots at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City...". Over a 6 year period of time this money diss appeared. Would had been discovered if [...]
CPA Jerome Johnson, principle of The Forensic Firm in New Mexico has an excellent video, which discusses the issue of spouses hiding assets.
As we close in on April 15, the traditional tax filing hysteria with all the media attention helps spawn another side industry – tax scams. This time of year criminals use the fear of IRS to prey on victims and get them to disclose valuable info to steal identities and money. The IRS issued a [...]
Always, always, always, call the auditor who prepared the statements to determine whether you have real statements. We just did this on our "Invisible Children" post ... and they were delighted to talk to us! (P.S. They said good things about Invisible Children) Also check with the State Board of Accountancy look-up to see if [...]
37,000,000 hits on you tube. Only about 1,000,000 likes. About 32,000 dislikes. (This is as of March 8, 2012.) Apparently not a whole lot of people went through the whole 29 minute video. Many comments are found on You Tube and Facebook that this is a scam initiated by Invisible Children. Let's do some rudimentary [...]
It's always stunning to me how many families represent almost no taxable income but live in splendor in vast palatial estates in fancy neighborhoods. They often have a matched pair of incredibly expensive German cars in the driveway. Their kids go to private schools and the family passports are stamped from a variety of exotic [...]
