Audit passes judgment

Former Iberia Parish Sheriff Sid Hebert exercised poor judgment in some financial decisions that left Sheriff Louis Ackal’s administration in somewhat of a hole, but few, if any, of the findings in a recently concluded forensic audit could result in legal penalties against the former sheriff, said C. Burton Kolder, the Lafayette auditor whose firm conducted the audit.

Ackal said he expected the findings to reveal a more condemning assessment of Hebert’s accounting, and the audit makes no mention of any mismanagement of funds in relation to the Iberia Parish Correctional Center, which Ackal, upon taking office, had cited as an impetus for conducting his own third-party audit.

But Kolder, whose firm audits 15 sheriff’s offices annually, described the amount of deficiencies listed in the audit as “more than normal,” adding they exceeded the amount found in any other sheriff’s office he audited this year. He said the most alarming finding of the audit, perhaps, was that Ackal’s administration inherited a severely depleted general fund — $1.68 million — that only covered about a month of expenditures.

Kolder said standard practice calls for about three months’ worth of expenditures to be left over so the incoming administration can avoid excessive borrowing. Ackal said the cash left over was “only sufficient to make the first payroll” and that “funds had to be borrowed to pay staff.”

“We haven’t completely analyzed the auditor’s findings,” Ackal said Friday in a prepared statement. “But these specific findings alone indicate to me that Hebert made very poor financial decisions for the citizens of Iberia Parish.”

In the long run, Kolder said, the Sheriff’s Office would be hamstrung by a number of contracts the previous administration committed to over the years with Iberia Parish and the city of New Iberia that “are not well-written in favor of the Sheriff’s Office.” The auditor cited in particular the parish jail as being problematic in that Ackal’s administration only receives a fraction of its operating costs from the parish.

“This is something that’s evolved over the years and it’s going to take some time to fix it,” Kolder said.

The audit, a copy of which was obtained Friday by The Daily Iberian, identifies one instance of noncompliance and two significant deficiencies in internal control considered by the auditing firm to be “material weaknesses.” 

The noncompliance comment notes there was no documentation maintained on vehicle purchases between $10,000 and $20,000, indicating a possible violation of public bid laws.

The audit also cites one management issue as a possible violation of the Louisiana Constitution, namely a finding in which an auditing consultant of Hebert’s identified  as “questionable and/or not appropriate” $1,088  in credit card expenditures that Hebert later reimbursed. “Management should practice appropriate business purchases and should not expend public monies to identify inappropriate/questionable expenditure practices by the Sheriff,” the report states.

In a telephone interview Friday, Hebert said some confusion had resulted from his serving on multiple governing bodies at the same time and that he was unsure who had spent the money and what it was for. He said he decided to reimburse it out of his own pocket.

In a press release sent to media late Friday afternoon, Ackal stated the auditor “made Hebert pay $1,088 in charges because the charges were of a personal nature.” Ackal’s statement enumerated seven “management issues” in all, based on the auditors’ findings, that “caught his eye.” He said the disclosure that Hebert spent more than $145,000 last fiscal year on advertising and public relations could stand in “violation of the Louisiana Constitution.”

“There were a lot of billboards around the parish,” Ackal said. “There were many put up on a monthly basis bragging about the office it serves. That’s self-serving.”

The audit states 86 percent of that money was paid to one vendor — Kolder could not recall the name of the vendor but said it was a marketing firm that sells advertisements such as billboards — but makes no mention of the expenditures being unconstitutional.

“There’s no question it was excessive,” Kolder said, adding an office the size of Iberia’s would conservatively spend about $25,000 on advertising and public relations. Steve Elledge, counsel to the Sheriff’s Office, estimated Ackal’s administration would spend “around $10,000” in that category.

Hebert said some of the money likely was spent as part of an effort to improve hurricane evacuation information dissemination that included an emergency preparedness Web site.

In his press release, Ackal also said Hebert failed to address capital needs for the past several years “necessitating acquisition of a new fleet of patrol cars to properly police the city of New Iberia and the parish of Iberia.” The audit did not explicitly reference the patrol cars.

Hebert defended what he called his piecemeal approach of replacing “10 or so” cruisers each year, saying it was a better business decision at the time. He also questioned whether Ackal will be able to pay back the some $4 million he borrowed in part to purchase the new fleet.

After listening to Ackal’s list of concerns over the phone, Hebert said, “None of them have anything to do with a legislative audit report. Typically, you’re going to have some cited deficiencies in any year.” He continued, “If you don’t like why I did it, fine. But it’s not criminal. It’s now time for him to be sheriff and solve the problems of the community.”

The audit will be sent this week to the state legislative auditor, whose office will assign a letter grade to the audit. Kolder declined to speculate as to what grade the Sheriff’s Office can expect but said it could expect the state to intervene if the deficiencies found this time persist in years to come.