The Association’s Board of Director’s major accomplishment at its October 21, 2014 Board of Directors meeting was the adoption of a new 5-year strategic Plan. Patra Liu, Assistant Inspector General and Legal Counsel of the Miami-Dade County, FL OIG, and long time AIG Board member, served as the chairperson of the Strategic Plan Committee, which worked for two-years on crafting the new plan. According to Ms. Liu, the work was sometime laborious and at times even a little contentious, as the committee sought to find common ground, build consensus, and resolve philosophical differences regarding the Association’s mission and priorities. Ultimately, however, the hard work paid off, and the full Board enthusiastically endorsed and approved the work of the committee, and adopted the new plan unanimously.
Articles
President’s Message
AIG President, Melinda Miguel
Hello AIG Members and Friends,
I am pleased to report that our recently completed 2013 Summer Institute in Jacksonville, Florida was a tremendous success. Once again we had over 100 attendees, and the demand for our certification and training programs continues to grow. We work hard to ensure that our Institutes remain state of the art, and provide up-to-date, cutting edge information essential for all inspectors general, auditors and investigators. I am so proud of the instructors and Board of Director members who volunteer their time, to work on our Institutes. Their selfless dedication to the Association and our Institute is simply incredible.
We now are turning our attention to our upcoming conference in New Orleans from November 5-8th. This year’s conference theme is: “How To: Practical Tips for IGs.” The presentations focus on providing the practical foundations for implementing inspector general initiatives. Conference attendees will be able to take back to their offices information on an array of issues including: working with community leaders, working with the US Attorney’s office, using mobile devices in investigations, and utilizing electronic workpapers and geomapping software. Also, for the first time, we are offering a pre-conference workshop on Tuesday, November 5, 2013, on conducting evaluations and performance audits. You will not want to miss this. Here is a link to the conference web page: http://inspectorsgeneral.org/fall2013/
The Association’s New Orleans’ conference promises to be the highlight of year. I hope to see you there!
President’s Message
AIG President, Melinda Miguel
Happy Summer! The summer is one of the busiest times for the Association as we prepare for our new membership year, which begins on July 1st, and gear up for our Certified Inspector General Institute, which this year will be held August 19-23, 2013 in Jacksonville, Florida. I am pleased to report that both our membership and Institute application processes are going well. If you have not done so already, please help keep the AIG strong by renewing your membership; and if you are interested in joining us in Jacksonville, please submit your application as soon as possible.
With respect to the Institute, the AIG staff, and our volunteer Professional Certification Board (PCB) and Institute course managers are working diligently to ensure the success of all three of our highly regarded, five-day training and certification courses — the Certified Inspector General (CIG); Certified Inspector General Investigator (CIGI) and Certified Inspector General Auditor (CIGA). Each course is overseen by dedicated managers who are responsible for evaluating course content and recruiting qualified instructors from throughout the inspector general community. Our goal is to ensure that our curriculum is current and comprehensive, and that our instructors are experts in their fields and provide superior instruction.
I would like to thank everyone associated with making our Institute a success and I specifically want to thank AIG Vice President and Chair of the PCB, Robert Clift, and the institute mangers Matt Harris (CIG), Ben Redmond and Steven Pasichow (CIGI) and Hector Collazo (CIGA) for all of their extraordinary efforts. I would also like to mention Bill DiVello, who after years of being the driving force behind the CIGA, has decided to step down as course manager.
As you can probably tell, we take great pride in ensuring that our Institutes serve the inspector general community. Moreover, not only do they provide state of the art training and the certifications deemed essential to many professionals working in offices of inspector general, they also serve as a wonderful opportunity to build the inspector general community. I am pleased to report that based on our very successful Winter Institute in Austin this last February, a new Texas Chapter of our Association is in the process of being established. With the addition of Texas, we will now have 8 regional Chapters providing local training and networking opportunities. The new Texas Chapter follows in the footsteps of our San Diego Chapter that was established in 2012.
Our next event in 2013 will be our annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 5-8, 2013. Our theme is “Inspector General – How To…”, in which many of our speakers will provide practical information on the nuts and bolts of the work of inspector general offices. This year we are also adding a pre-conference workshop on conducting evaluations and performance audits. You will not want to miss it!
Hope to see everyone in New Orleans!
President’s Message
I am so pleased to report that the Association’s Winter Institute in Austin, TX was an overwhelming success. We closed our registration early after we quickly reached our maximum of 100 accepted applicants from local, state, federal and military IG offices from across the country.
AIG President, Melinda Miguel
It was wonderful to have the Institute in Texas. I want to personally thank Inspector General, Douglas Wilson, Texas Health and Human Services Commission and his staff for their warm welcome and general hospitality. The Association looks forward to strengthening our relationship with the oversight and inspection community in the Lone Star State, and we are committed to returning to Texas to provide additional training opportunities.
It is clear, the IG concept is continuing to grow. Los Angeles County, California recently created a new IG office, along with Jefferson Parish in Louisiana and the City of Detroit. There is also a currently pending bill in the Kansas legislature for the creation of a statewide inspector general office. The Association is committed to building the IG community, and we are excited to see that, even in these tough economic times, jurisdictions around the country continue to recognize that inspectors general add value. A list of inspector general offices and other public sector oversight agencies that make up the inspector general community is available on our website.
President’s Message
AIG President, Melinda Miguel
I hope you all are well and enjoying the holidays.
I am so pleased to report that 2012 has been a terrific year for the Association of Inspectors General. Our conferences in Anaheim and Clearwater were incredibly successful, as were our Florida-based Certified Inspector General Institute. There is no question that the Inspector General community is growing and very supportive of our Association.
Plans are well underway for our upcoming events in 2013. In light of the budgetary constraints that many of OIGs are facing, we decided to hold only one conference this year, but I can assure you that our 2013 conference in New Orleans will be something special. I want to thank New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux and his dedicated staff for the considerable work they have already put into planning the conference, which will be held the week of November 4, 2013. Please mark your calendars, and I hope to see you next Fall in the Crescent City.
Also, our 2013 institutes are quickly approaching! The winter institute will be held in Austin, Texas, February 25th to March 1st and our spring Institute will be held in Honolulu, HI, May 20th to 24th. Please contact the AIG Office for more information. The seats for Austin are rapidly filling up.
With the recent election of our new Board of Directors, I would like to take a moment to thank the members whose terms have ended, for their vital and greatly appreciated service to the Association. A special thanks goes to Elizabeth Archer, David Ray, Vicki Fisher, John Moriarty, Tracy Smith and Betty Vega. I also would like to take this opportunity to welcome and congratulate our newly elected and re-elected board members: Debra Rayna Alexander, Tom Caulfield, Cedric Johnson, Barry Kluger, Milton Mayo, Jr. Ricardo Meza, Austin Onwualu, Howard Schwartz, Sheryl Steckler and Stephen Street.
As we begin a New Year, one of the Association’s top priorities is building and strengthening the IG community. To do this, we need your input. Please let us know what you are thinking and tell us how we can continue to improve our services. We do listen. In response to the survey we conducted in 2012, we have plans to begin offering online training opportunities for our members to earn CPE credits. We hope to start by offering video presentations on current IG related topics. Please stay tuned.
As always, we encourage members to get involved and consider volunteering on a Committee of the Association. Committee work is tremendously important to our future success. The committees are as follows: Certification, Training, Membership, Conference, Legislative, Professional Standards, Peer Review, Strategic Planning, Integrity, Treasury and Finance and Chapter Development. Please email our Executive Director if you are interested.
Speaking of our Executive Director, I want to thank Phil Zisman and his staff for all their hard work and leadership in administering to the needs of the Association.
As we enter a new year, please be mindful of the things that enrich our lives the most such as health, family, friends and freedom. Let’s embrace the opportunities that are before us, foster service to our communities, and work to enhance public trust in government – TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Happy holidays to you and yours.
Respectfully,
Melinda M. Miguel, President
2013 Winter Inspector General Institute
Inspector General InstituteTM Professional certification programs offered;
- Certified Inspector General (CIG)
- Certified Inspector General Auditor (CIGA)
- Certified Inspector General Investigator (CIGI)
2013 Winter- Austin, TX – February 25 – March 1, 2013 The next Certification Program offered is for the 2013 Certified Inspector General Auditor, Certified Inspector General Investigator and the Certified Inspector General. The Institute will take place February 25 – March 1, 2013 in Austin, TX. The Application Forms must be completed, signed and mailed to the association. We are currently accepting applications.
Lodging Information
The institute will be held at:
Marriott Austin Downtown 300 E. 4th Street Austin, TX 78701 Tel. # 512-236-8008Institute attendees should make their own reservations directly with the hotel.
2012 Winter Institute Success
On March 2, 2012, the Association of Inspectors General wrapped up its five-day Winter Institute, in Clearwater, FL. A total of 61 students from local, state, federal and military inspector general offices from all over the country attended. There were 17 students enrolled in the Certified Inspector General Auditor (CIGA) program and 44 in the Certified Inspector General Investigator (CIGI) program. The students attended five days of intensive classes on a broad array of subjects related to the inspector general, audit and investigative process, and sat for a comprehensive final examination. The consensus of the instructors and students was that the Institute was a great success, and the terrific weather and location was only part of the reason.
US Inspector General for Afghanistan quits
From the Boston Globe
WASHINGTON — Retired Major General Arnold Fields, the US official in charge of rooting out corruption in Afghanistan, announced his resignation yesterday, just days after firing two of his top deputies.
Key members of Congress urged President Obama to dismiss Fields, saying he failed to oversee the $56 billion that the United States has poured into Afghanistan to rebuild schools, roads, and other facilities.
Fields took the job as the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction in 2008 when the job was created. His resignation is effective Feb. 4. At the time of the firings, Fields said he said he did not dismiss his top deputies in order to save his own job.
Also yesterday, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan said a recent pledge by a southern Afghan tribe to stand up to the Taliban shows the military push in the country’s most violent region is making headway and stifling the insurgents’ “central nervous system.’’
General David Petraeus said in the southern Afghan city of Lashkar Gah that a shift in thinking by the Afghanistan government and NATO means that the tribe’s risky move is being embraced rather than ignored. And that brings the hope that others may follow suit, he said.
Later yesterday, Petraeus was in Kabul to greet Vice President Joe Biden, who made a surprise visit to Afghanistan to assess progress toward the key objective of handing over security from international forces to Afghans.
In a separate development, Mitt Romney met yesterday with Karzai in Afghanistan, as part of a weeklong overseas trip that could bolster the former Massachusetts governor’s foreign policy credentials.
Romney, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, is visiting Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Caulfield Appointed Executive Director of CIGIE Training Institute
Thomas Caulfield, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, National Reconnaissance Office, and a member of the Board of the Association of Inspectors General, has been appointed as the as the Executive Director of the CIGIE Training Institute – the training arm of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) as their Executive Director of the CIGIE Training Institute. The CIGIE Training Institute currently consists of the Inspector General Criminal Investigative Academy (IGCIA) at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).
The mission of the Executive Director is to rebuild the previous Inspector General Audit Training Institute (IGATI) and the previous Inspector General Management Institute, both in the next year, along with enhancing training at IGCIA. The Audit Training Institute supports the needs of professional Inspector General Auditors, Inspectors and Evaluators. The Management Institute provides training to help build tomorrows Federal IG leaders/managers. The management academy will also provide training to lawyers and seniors entering the Inspector General profession for the first time.
Caulfield will be helping the CIGIE put into action their vision that the Training Institute’s overall mission is to provide education and training for managers, auditors, evaluators, inspectors, law enforcement officials, attorneys and other professionals in the Federal OIG community.
Caulfield previously served as the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, National Reconnaissance Office. He is a Senior Intelligence Services Officer with over 30 years government service all of which has been associated with law enforcement and investigation. He has been assigned to the NRO OIG for the last ten years. Mr. Caulfield holds various certifications that include Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certified Inspector General (CIG), and Certified Inspector General for Investigation (CIGI) to name a few. He is a graduate from Wayland Baptist University and St. Leo College, where he received degrees in both criminology and criminal justice. Over the last eight years, Mr. Caulfield has been the Program Manager for a NRO OIG’s procurement fraud focused initiative, designed specifically to prevent, deter, and detect procurement fraud. This initiative was developed by Mr. Caulfield and caused a threefold increase in procurement fraud investigations being initiated by the NRO OIG, and the recovery of millions in fraudulent dollars. This procurement fraud initiative is a cross-functional effort involving all OIG business units, which includes Auditors, Inspectors, and Investigators.
Brown to Eliminate CA IG
From the Los Angeles Times
One of Gov.-elect Jerry Brown‘s first official acts will be eliminating the state Office of Inspector General, a position held by former L.A. City Controller Laura Chick, who has been responsible for overseeing more than $50 billion in federal stimulus money.
Brown’s office said in a statement Monday that he is closing the operation, whose function mimics those of other state agencies, to save money.
“Ending this redundancy will save the state’s General Fund over $700,000 in fiscal year 2010-11,” the statement said. Brown has promised to cut 25% of the governor’s office budget.
California Inspector General Laura Chick
Chick, who achieved a measure of celebrity in Los Angeles for her public criticism of government waste, is not going quietly.
After announcing that Brown was closing her doors, Chick said the Capitol needs more oversight, not less. She complained that her efforts to shine a light on wasteful spending in Sacramento have been stymied by entrenched bureaucrats more interested in preserving their power than in ensuring public accountability.
“The state is not run by elected officials; it’s run by very powerful, very knowledgeable civil servants,” Chick said, adding: “Things don’t change unless they want them to.”
Brown’s statement Monday said six audits that Chick’s office is still working on will be finished by some of the bureaucrats she referred to, including those at the Bureau of State Audits and the Office of Audit and Evaluations in the Department of Finance.
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Chick in April 2009 to watch over the billions of federal stimulus dollars flowing from Washington, he said California was the first state in the nation to create such an office.
Schwarzenegger praised Chick’s “impressive track record,” telling the Sacramento establishment that the outspoken grandmother was “uniquely qualified” to ensure that stimulus money went where it was meant to go.
Accustomed to issuing blockbuster reports in Los Angeles, where she entered the city controller’s office armed with subpoena power and years of experience on the City Council, Chick struggled to make her presence felt in Sacramento.
In her new job, she lacked the power of the subpoena, which allows investigators to compel testimony and the release of records. For the first year of her 21-month tenure she had a skeleton staff, Chick said. But neither of those obstacles was as daunting as the culture shock.
“It is a challenge here in Sacramento to know exactly what needs fixing and how to go about it, because of the embedded culture of ‘we don’t air our dirty laundry,’ ” Chick wrote in a letter to Brown and Schwarzenegger on Monday.
When Schwarzenegger proposed making audits of state agencies public on the Internet, officials offered “all kinds of excuses to avoid complying,” Chick wrote. Some departments claimed it would take years to scan and post the reports.
Chick, a Democrat, said the state would have been better off if Brown had chosen to expand her powers, but she understands that he has a mandate to reduce spending wherever possible.
“The Governor-elect faces an extremely difficult job in grappling with the severity of the state budget crisis,” Chick wrote. “I wish him the very best during the months ahead.”
This year, Schwarzenegger proposed making Chick’s office permanent, with a $2.8-million budget, but legislators rejected the plan. Instead, they put the money into the governor’s office budget.
Some Republicans, who have generally supported budget cuts of any kind, criticized Brown’s move.
“Abolishing this office sends a signal to those who would abuse taxpayer funds that the state will not be overly concerned watching over how taxpayer money is spent going forward,” said a statement from California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring.
Chick entered public office in 1993, unseating an incumbent city councilwoman to represent a district in the San Fernando Valley. Eight years later, she was elected controller, turning that office into a political powerhouse that criticized the contracting decisions of then-Mayor James K. Hahn. One of her last audits in that post exposed a backlog of untested DNA rape kits at the Los Angeles Police Department.