Gainesville City Commission will select new City Auditor on Thursday

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Gainesville City Commission conducted group interviews with the three finalists for the City Auditor on November 28.

Thomas Alger

Thomas Alger has a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and an MBA. He is a Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Information Systems Auditor and also has certifications in risk management and fraud. He is currently the Chief Audit Executive at the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and has 31 years of experience in government, insurance, financial services, and other businesses.

Alger told the Commission he’s interested in working for the City because he and his wife are empty-nesters and want to move to Florida. He said he ensures compliance with regulations by preparing an Access database listing all the regulatory requirements, and then his auditors match up every procedure in the audit with the associated requirements. When asked whether he had discovered fraud, waste, or abuse in an organization he audited, he said he couldn’t “go into them in detail,” but there was one instance in which $2 million was clawed back from a vendor after an audit. 

Alger told the Commission that he doesn’t sugarcoat things and is “very truthful, very honest.” He also identified attending City events as an important part of establishing his presence in the City and developing relationships.

Alger said he didn’t think he would need to take any significant actions to change the City Auditor’s office because “as far as I know, they all have certifications, so I’m assuming that they all know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it… I think that the department, from what I’ve heard from everyone here,… it’s been run really well.”

He said it’s important to not get emotional about an area that is being audited, and his approach is to “[put] the facts out there” and ask the people who are upset to show him the control that is in place to prevent fraud in that area: “You have to be able to produce a control.”

Rory Galter

Rory Galter has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and an MBA. He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant. He has been an Audit Manager at the City of Dallas, Texas, since 2015 and has over 45 years of audit and financial management experience. 

When asked why he applied for the position, Galter said he had three reasons: he likes the size of the Audit Department; his sister who lives in California would like to live closer to him, and Florida is one of her favored locations; and he has previously had short assignments in Florida and finds the weather “acceptable.”

Galter says he primarily does “performance audits,” rather than financial audits, at the City of Dallas, but he has “a lot of financial audit background.” As an example, he said he assisted with an audit of a nonprofit that had a large contract with the City of Dallas, and as a result of the audit, the CEO of the nonprofit was fired and its Board of Directors was reduced from 50 people to 20 people.

Galter also worked on a housing inventory audit because different organizations were giving the City different numbers for housing units housing affordability in Dallas; the audit nailed down definitions of single-family and multifamily housing, produced the number of residential homes in the city, and devised a method to calculate affordability.

Galter agreed with Alger that he wouldn’t need to make big changes in his first six months: “From everything I’ve heard and understand, the City Auditor’s office is very well run right now; there’s really not any type of issue.” 

He also said that he has operational experience that makes him sensitive to the primary mission of City departments, so when he asks them for documents, he understands that producing those documents may be a lower priority than responding to constituents.

Stephen Mhere

Mhere has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a master’s degree in Health Informatics, and an MBA. He is a PhD candidate in Public Affairs at the University of Central Florida. He is a Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Information Systems Auditor.  He is currently a Senior Auditor with the City of Tampa’s Audit Department and has 18 years of public sector experience. 

Regarding why he is interested in the position, Mhere said, “I will not say that Gainesville was a great appeal. Compared to Tampa, Gainesville is a very nice city. But I think I’m at a stage in my career where I can take the next step in working for the government… and this opportunity came along.”

Regarding his philosophy of managing employees, Mhere said it is important to give negative feedback in private and praise in public. Regarding how he would develop relationships within City government, he said his office would need relationships with the people “on the ground” and that it is necessary to have courtesy and be respectful, but “You have to have integrity, and integrity means saying what has to be said.”

Next step

The City Commission plans to select the City Auditor at the end of the morning portion of their December 7 meeting; a contract could be ready by their December 14 Special Meeting.