Melinda Miguel, President, Association of Inspectors General

I’m pleased to report that the 2012 Winter Institute held in Clearwater, FL was a tremendous success. Thank you to all of the investigators, auditors, members, instructors, staff and volunteers who participated.  We had a total of 61 attendees: 17 for the Certified Inspector General Auditor program and 44 for the Certified Inspector General Investigator program. Our certification programs for auditors and investigators are recognized as being essential within the inspector general community, and the demand for our training has never been stronger. Our next Institute is scheduled for the West Palm Beach, FL area in August 2012. Please spread the word.

As winter is coming to an end, the Association is working hard on planning more high-quality events scheduled for the coming months.  Our next event will be our Spring Conference in Anaheim, CA in May. We have a very exciting and dynamite speakers list, and the conference promises to provide a wonderful opportunity for our members to connect with their peers.  For more information please check out our website. I am positive that our Anaheim Conference will provide an excellent opportunity for your personal and professional development.

Volunteers are the heart of the AIG.  Your Executive Committee, Board of Directors, and local Chapter officers commit their expertise and untold hours of effort in helping to build our organization.  It is truly rewarding to have the opportunity to serve and feel part of this team.

I hope to see you in Anaheim.

As always, your feedback is welcome. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Together – we make a difference.

In addition to the useful training, certainly one of the highlights of the week was the opportunity for students to meet and network with colleagues in their field. The happy hour in the hotel bar was a great success.  All participants enjoyed the storytelling of their fellow attendees and the sharing of information.  The connections made at the Institute are sure to be long lasting.

The summer institute will be held in West Palm Beach, FL, August 2012. Additional information will be provided in upcoming editions of the IG News and on the Association’s website.

Anita Butler

Editor, IG News  

Upcoming Events:

Summer 2012 Institute, August 20-24, 2012, West Palm Beach, FL

Fall 2012 Conference, October 9-12, 2012, Clearwater, FL

General George Washington addresses the conference

On October 12 to 14^th, the Association of Inspectors General celebrated its 15^th anniversary and held its annual fall conference in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. The Association’s local Washington, DC Chapter – under the leadership of chapter president Christa Phillips, Inspector General of the Baltimore Housing Authority and June Jennings, Inspector General of the Virginia Department of Corrections – put on quite a show for the more than 170 attendees.

Williamsburg was chosen to host the conference, in part, because this year the Virginia State Legislature voted to create a new Virginia State Office of Inspector General. The conference’s first panel included two members of the Virginia House of Delegates, who explained their bi-partisan efforts to create the new IG office. The message was clear – ensuring integrity and accountability in government transcends partisan politics!

President Melinda Miguel gives the Keynote Address "Integrity and Accountability More Important Than Ever"

There was an exceptionally strong lineup of speakers.  Highlights of the conference were presentations by Hon. Phyllis Fong, Inspector General, US Department of Agriculture and Chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency; Hon. Joseph E. Schmitz, Former Inspector General, US Department of Defense; Peggy Gustafson, Inspector General, Small Business Administration; Sheryl Steckler, Inspector General, Palm Beach County, Florida; and Phil Zisman, Executive Director, Association of Inspectors General. Madame Ndour Nafy Ngom Auditor General of Senegal and Chair of the African Panel of State Inspectors General, and members of Ireland’s Garda Siochana also addressed the conference.

Executive Director Phil Zisman speaks at a panel on local inspectors general.

The conference also welcomed students from John Jay College of Criminal Justice who are enrolled in the Department of Public Management’s Masters of Public Administration – Inspector General, program.

Students from John Jay College's National Online MPA Inspector General Program

Another highlight was the special guest appearance of General George Washington at the conference dinner on Thursday night. General Washington, who was in Williamsburg preparing for the Battle of York, gave a detailed account of his appointment of General Frederick Von Steuben as the Continental Army’s Inspector General. Von Steuben is recognized as the first inspector general in the United States.

The annual spring conference will be held in Anaheim, California, May 15 to 18, 2012.

Sheryl Steckler, Inspector General of Palm Beach County, Florida

Joseph Schmitz, Former Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense

Past President Leonard Odom

Madame Ndour Nafy Ngom Auditor General of Senegal Chair of the African Panel of State Inspectors General

President Miguel with Mr. Barannik Aleksandr Alekseevich, President The Institute of Financial Control and Audit Non-Governmental Institution of Higher Professional Education

Ruairí Nestor of An Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland

Mr. Luvinda Jeronimo Counsel, Inspector General of Angola, Mr. Abdou Karim Gueye Inspector General and Chief of Research, OIG of Senegal, Executive Secretary, Forum of African State Inspectors General, and Madame Ndour Nafy Ngom Auditor General of Senegal Chair of the African Panel of State Inspectors General

Professor Jeanne Marie Col of John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Robert Cerasoli, the Founding President of the Association

Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the founding of the Association

Ruairí Nestor and Emma Burke of An Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland

Chelsea Binns, Vice President, Citigroup and Doctoral Student, John Jay College of Criminal Justice address the conference about hotlines

• Certified Inspector General (CIG)
• Certified Inspector General Auditor (CIGA)
• Certified Inspector General Investigator (CIGI)

2011 Summer – Williamsburg VA, DC – August 15-19, 2011 The next Certification Program offered is for the 2011 Certified Inspector General Auditor and the Certified Inspector General Investigator. The Institute will take place August 16-19, 2011 in Jacksonville, FL. The following Application Form must be completed, signed and mailed to the association.

• Certified Inspector General Auditor
• Certified Inspector General Investigator

The applicant must also complete, sign and submit the appropriate paper application form above as approval of the inspector general is required. Payment may be provided by check or purchase order with the application. Alternatively, payment may be provided by credit card or debit card, using the this form: Inspector General Institutes – Tuition Payment by Credit or Debit Card

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

The U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) is proposing new national standards to prevent prison rape. The standards propose options for the involvement of Federal, State and local Inspectors General in incident reporting and compliance auditing. Required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA),  PREA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking includes the proposed standards, designed to prevent, reduce, and punish prison rape.

New Functions for Federal, State and Local Inspectors General?

In the PREA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the rules identify inspectors general for reporting and auditing functions. State and local designations of IGs for these functions is not mandated, but the alternatives proposed involve private and community based groups that may be considered less satisfactory to prison authorities than IGs.

In the rule, IGs are proposed as options in the following functions:

Audits: The standards require periodic independent audits of compliance. The proposed standard specifies that the audit may be conducted by “(1) A correctional monitoring body that is not part of the agency but that is part of, or authorized by, the relevant State or local government; (2) An auditing entity that is within the agency but separate from its normal chain of command, such as an inspector general or ombudsperson who reports directly to the agency head or to the agency’s governing board; or (3) Other outside individuals with relevant experience.” Three options are proposed as to the scope and timing of the audits: “One possible approach is to adopt the Commission’s proposal of triennial audits for all covered facilities, possibly with a modification lowering or eliminating the burden on lockups, the smallest facilities covered by PREA. A second approach is to adopt a system of random sampling of facilities. Because no facility would know in advance whether it would be audited, all facilities would have an incentive to be in compliance. A third approach is to implement an auditing system based on information indicating concerns at a particular facility. Audits could be triggered when information was received providing reason to believe that a particular facility is significantly out of compliance with the standards. Such a trigger could be based upon facility-provided data, third-party complaints, or any other source of credible information.”

External Reporting Options for Prisoners: The standards require that an “outside public entity or office” be designated to receive and forward prisoner complaints. Once again, IGs are identified as an alternative if “the agency enables inmates to make such reports to an internal entity that is operationally independent from the agency’s chain of command, such as an inspector general or ombudsperson who reports directly to the agency head..”

IGs Must Have Operational Independence From the Agency’s Chain of Command

The standards repeatedly use the phrase “internal inspector general or ombudsperson who reports directly to the agency head or to the agency’s governing board.” The standards appear to permit the designation of an IG working within an agency – for an example an IG who reports for the Corrections Director/Commissioner- provided that the IG is “operationally independent from the agency’s chain of command.”

The Association of Inspectors General’s  Model Legislation for Offices of Inspectors General tracks this language, stating: “The Inspector General reports to the appointing authority and to the legislative body of the (agency). It is operationally independent from the appointing authority, the legislative branch and the agency. The appointing authority, legislative body or agency head shall not prevent, impair, or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or completing any audit, investigation or review.”

Summary of the Standards

The USDOJ provides the following summary of the standards: The standards seek to prevent sexual abuse and to reduce the harm that it causes when it occurs.   Each of the four sets of standards consists of 11 categories: prevention planning; responsive planning; training and education; screening for risk of sexual victimization and abusiveness; reporting; official response following an inmate report; investigations; discipline; medical and mental care; data collection and review; and audits. Among other things, the proposed standards would require correctional agencies to:

• Ban cross-gender strip searches, and for juveniles, cross-gender pat-down searches;
• Check the backgrounds of new hires and not hire past abusers;
• Establish an evidence protocol to preserve evidence following an incident and train investigators to act promptly and diligently;
• Screen inmates through a process that takes into account their safety and assign them to housing in a way that best protects them;
• Provide multiple methods to report sexual abuse;
• Provide inmates access to outside victim advocates for emotional support services related to sexual abuse;
• Provide appropriate medical and mental health care to victims;
• Prepare a written policy mandating zero tolerance toward all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment;
• Discipline staff and inmate assailants appropriately, with termination as the presumptive disciplinary sanction for staff who have engaged in sexual touching;
• Train employees on their responsibilities in preventing, recognizing and responding to sexual abuse;
• Allow inmates a reasonable amount of time to file grievances so as to preserve their ability to seek legal redress after exhausting administrative remedies; and
• Conduct audits to assess compliance.

Once published, the standards will be immediately binding on the federal Bureau of Prisons.   States that do not comply with the standards are subject to a five percent reduction in funds they would otherwise receive for prison purposes from the department unless the governor certifies that five percent of such funds will be used to enable compliance in future years.

“Sexual abuse is a crime, not punishment for a crime,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.   “The Department of Justice’s goal is to eliminate these acts of violence by taking deliberative and concrete steps to ensure the health and safety of prisoners.   In crafting our proposed rule, we have aimed to build a durable set of standards that are attainable, effective and consistent with the Prison Rape Elimination Act’s requirements and goals.”‪

Editorial by the WashingtonExaminer.com

In a Richmond federal courtroom yesterday, Justin French pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining between $7 million to $20 million worth of state and federal tax credits to rehab historic Richmond real properties. He could spend up to 30 years behind bars. Justice is done, and everyone is happy.  But not really.  French is just the latest in a string of fraudsters and rip-off artists who’ve stolen millions from Virginia taxpayers, and the rash of recent scandals is making it clear that the state desperately needs an independent inspector general who can sniff out the fraud and abuse long before it reaches French-like proportions.

Consider a few recent examples…

• Former state finance secretary John Forbes stole $5 million from the state’s Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission – while serving as a member of the commission’s board.  He’s been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
• Former Delegate Phil Hamilton is under federal indictment for bribery and extortion, relating to a scheme he concocted to create a position for himself at Old Dominion University using taxpayer funds.
• The Attorney General’s office is investigating the deal to acquire Biscuit Run from a group of developers and convert the land into a state park – a deal closed in the waning days of the Kaine administration. Taxpayers may be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in what is being characterized as a bailout for the developers.

And there’s more – recent audits of the state’s transportation department (VDOT) have found that its operations are hamstrung by political meddling, and that it was sitting on nearly $1.5 billion in unspent funds, even while its political masters during the Kaine years were pleading poverty (and closing, for a time, the state’s rest areas).  While none of this was criminal, it does show a profound lack of accountability.

Just this morning, Del. Ben Cline testified before a House committee “…on need to audit the (Virginia) Lottery after revelations that they gave [Washington Redskins] skybox tickets to staff instead of awarding as prizes.” This isn’t Cline’s first run-in with the Lottery, which seems to have a rather interesting view of how it spends taxpayer dollars.

These incidents are likely just the tip of the iceberg – and why Virginia needs to take immediate steps to crack-down on its newest growth industry.

Editorial from the Washington Examiner

Delegate Steve Landes is carrying legislation in the General Assembly to create an independent inspector general who would be appointed by the governor but subject to General Assembly confirmation. The IG would be responsible for investigating “…complaints alleging fraud, waste, abuse, corruption, or mistreatment of citizens of the Commonwealth by a state agency or public officers and employees, including allegations of criminal acts affecting the operation of state agencies.”

Similar bills have been introduced for years in the General Assembly, but gotten nowhere. Here’s hoping the worthies decided to do the long-overdue right thing and pass Landes’ bill.

Melinda Miguel

Governor Rick Scott today announced further staff appointments in the Executive Office of the Governor. Scott announced the appointments of Doug Darling as Deputy Chief of Staff/Director of Cabinet Affairs, Jesse Panuccio and C.B Upton as Deputy General Counsels, Melinda Miguel as Chief Inspector General, and Brian Hughes as Deputy Communications Director.

“I am grateful that this team is joining my administration to help me change the way Florida does business”, Governor Scott said. “We will work every day to create jobs for hard-working Floridians and these five experienced individuals will be an integral part of my office”.

As Chief Inspector General to the Governor, Melinda Miguel brings a record of experience and financial accountability to the Scott administration. She will monitor and coordinate the audit and investigative activities of the Inspectors General in the eighteen agencies under the Governor. She previously served as Chief Inspector General from 2007 to 2010. Her past experience includes service as Inspector General to the Florida Attorney General’s office, the Florida Department of Education, and the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. A graduate of Florida State University, she is the current president of the National Association of Inspectors General.