Audit should seal Salmon’s fate

There are consequences when you wait too long to make a difficult, but necessary, change, or when you accept excuse after excuse and ignore red flag after red flag.

We know — and you know — by watching what has unfolded in several places across this county over the past few years just how much damage incompetence and inattention combined with a whom-you-know-based employment system and voter apathy can do.

We have lived through an almost complete financial failure of a school district and are living now with the consequences on education quality in this community.

We were shocked to hear about a massive scandal — resulting in federal indictments — at our Sheriff’s Office.

We have watched with open-mouth astonishment at the continued unprofessionalism in the Register of Deeds Office, her declarations of unfair treatment, and her lack of promised competence. And we might even have chuckled a little — in that uncomfortable kind of way — when she announced she would be seeking re-election.

And as we grappled with all of that, we have become increasingly aware of the bad decisions and seeming shoulder-shrug arrogance in the “leadership suite” as questions continue to swirl around management practices and priorities and the curiously never-ending late audits in the city of Goldsboro.

As a community, we recently took important steps to address that last one. We have a new council, a new mayor, and reassurance that the hard votes would be taken and that change would be a top agenda item.

We asked those new council members to live up to the promises they made — that the needs of the citizens of Goldsboro would be top priority, including making safety and adequate police protection Job 1.

Turns out we cast those votes to change leadership just in time.

Because now, we need to ask those newly elected representatives to make two more very important personnel decisions. Now.

The State Auditor’s Office has released a preliminary report of its audit of the city of Goldsboro’s financial practices — a report that is now in the hands of city leaders.

And it is grim. Really grim.

The report is not final yet, so city leaders in general, but City Manager Tim Salmon and Finance Director Catherine Gwynn in specific, will have a chance to explain — by Jan. 26 — what just a preliminary look at the city’s finances has uncovered.

But the answers, or explanations, for how your money was used — and who benefitted from that use — included in response to the auditors’ questions about city financial practices are puzzling at best and, in some cases, down-right jaw-dropping.

And this is just a snapshot. The auditors are recommending a deep dive in several areas.

That means that the findings in this report — and they are significant — could be just the tip of an iceberg that could have implications in previous administrations as well.

So, buckle up.

We expect this to get worse. Much worse.

But for now, we as a community are finding out about the irregularities not from the finance director who has been chronically late with audits because “of the mess she had to clean up” and not from the city manager who has been championing the city’s financial practices for months now and excusing away late audit after late audit.

We only know how bad it is because State Treasurer Dale Folwell, back in 2022, said enough, and ordered an audit of the city’s finances.

Thank goodness he did.

You can read the preliminary findings yourself. They are all here.

And then, when the city files its response, you can judge for yourself.

But because we believe that you are busy and might not want to wade through the entire document — although we encourage every Goldsboro citizen to do so — we have pulled together a highlight reel.

Well, let’s face it. It’s a lowlight reel.

Remember when we all talked about how little money there was in the city coffers and that there was no way for the city to pay for the raises for the police and firefighters?

Remember when the city manager said that the city utility fund was strained and that a rate increase was necessary?

Remember when concerns were raised about water plant capacity and necessary work that had to be done to keep the city’s water and sewer plants operating efficiently?

Remember when some past City Council members whined about their “treatment” and demanded expensive items for their “home offices?”

Remember the incessant bickering and grandstanding that resulted in little to nothing being done?

Well, remember all of that, and then process this:

Auditors took a sample of purchases made with city credit cards — 194 charges for a total of $100,733, to be exact.

They found that 81 of them — 42 percent — did not include itemized receipts, evidence of a valid city purpose or proper approvals.

Among the purchases that raised red flags?

A $1,500 desk set, a $3,000 hotel stay in Park City, Utah, $2,000-plus expensed trips to Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas, a $1,522 stay in Wilmington and a $2,000 barbecue lunch.

By the way, in case it wasn’t clear, you, the taxpayer, footed those bills.

OK, now re-read the comments about the city’s financial constraints and how we couldn’t afford to give police officers a raise when thousands of bullets were flying across your city, Tent City was expanding, and teenagers were getting gunned down because the GPD didn’t even have enough officers to ensure its own headquarters wasn’t vandalized by thugs, much less keep the peace in our community.

Angry yet?

Auditors also discovered that an unidentified former City Council member had not paid their water bill for EIGHT years and wracked up more than $4,700 in debt, that another elected official’s bill was delinquent for 1,392 days with a $798 balance and, a current city employee, according to the auditor’s report, did not pay their water bill for 3,111 days and had a balance of $1,466.

How does that sit with you?

Would you not have liked to postpone paying your water bill for YEARS?

Could you have found another use for the money you used to keep your water bill current?

And what do you think would have happened had you just stopped paying your bill?

Well, according to the auditors’ report, a current water department employee took care of her mother’s large unpaid balance — she just wiped it out — and did so without a supervisor’s review.

The city’s response?

There was “lee-way” that allowed water department employees to take such actions in cases of excessive water usage.

Huh? No potential for trouble there.

What do you think would have happened if your mother had a large delinquent bill? Would her water still be on?

Not. A. Chance.

And there were more examples of a shocking lack of oversight inside the water department.

The auditors’ report also noted that the city, while under the shadow of a rating as a “distressed utility,” did not pay careful enough attention to delinquent accounts.

After a review of just 19 of them, auditors found that the city had allowed more than 2.2 million gallons of water and sewer services to be consumed without payment.

That translated, the auditors’ report said, to $24,537 in water service provided to delinquent accounts, failure to recover $1,012 in stolen water services, and $40,520 in “unsupported balance credits.”

And remember, this is just a snapshot of the water accounts. God only knows what a thorough and full examination of those numbers might find.

So, we ask you to stop and think about this — what would it have cost to add another experienced officer to the police department?

Think we could have added one for the $50,000-plus spent on luxury vacations and BBQ luncheons charged to taxpayers by former City Council members and current city department heads?

Think we could have added another for the $50,000-plus in delinquent account balances that were either not collected by the water department or wiped off the books because the accountholder knew the right city employee or happened to be an elected official?

Of course, there is more.

Like the tens of thousands of federal COVID dollars misspent because, according to auditors, Salmon “overrode” best practices and ignored department heads that had the audacity to question his judgment.

That money is going to have to be repaid, by the way — again, with your tax dollars.

And there are more hits in the report.

You can — and should — read them in the pages that follow.

But before you do, there are lessons we feel the need to share — thoughts we have had that have made our eyes widen and our hearts skip a beat on more occasions than we can count.

How much of the incompetence and downright negligence that has unfolded in the last five years across this county would have been known had someone not been looking?

How much of it got worse because no one really was?

Well, we at New Old North, are looking now and have been looking and holding officeholders accountable.

And because of the people who have leaked documents, tipped us on where to look, and have decided that sitting back and watching the irresponsible spending and bad hires and decisions happening behind the scenes across the county is no longer an option, we are making a difference.

A real difference.

Together.

There has been a consequence of losing a strong, independent, and fearless watchdog media in this community.

When someone is watching officeholders — and looking carefully at decisions and documents, as well as asking the tough questions — stuff gets done, and those who do things like take expensive trips on the taxpayers’ dime or sign contracts with pricey consultants think twice about doing wrong.

And we feel strongly that we have gotten a lot done in this county since we began this journey because the bad actors are finding it increasingly difficult to operate in the shadows.

Communities are waking up.

Local residents are not willing to just sit back and accept that “this is just politics.”

They are demanding better.

And they are watching — helping us shine a light on those who seek not a better community, but personal gain.

We tell you all the time that Wayne County has massive potential and good people with patriots’ hearts.

But to get to our best self, we have to jettison the chaff.

And it is time to shake things up in the city’s “leadership suite.”

We promised to always tell you the truth — no matter how harsh it might seem.

So, here it is.

If it quacks like mismanagement and lack of leadership, well, then it is most assuredly a duck that needs to go — before it gets any worse.

And if that same duck is championing another, equally underperforming duck, that one needs to go, too.

That means Salmon — and his finance director — should be shown the door.