On the heels of several major bank failures and a subsequent billion dollar government bailout, one councilor wants the city to incorporate methods that would show the city's finances are on the right track.
Ward 3 Councilor George A. Darcy III said the city should look at implementing some elements of the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act to increase financial transparency.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was legislation adopted in the aftermath of corporate financial scandals such as Enron to protect shareholders and the general public from corporate accounting fraud.
Darcy said he wants the city to use a similar formula by creating independent audit and oversight committees that would review the annual budget, posting not only the budget but also all financial transactions on the city's Web site. The committees would also develop annual ethics training.
Darcy said putting those extra checks and balances in place are important "so that the citizenry knows what their tax dollars are being spent on."
Darcy said other ways to ensure more government transparency would be for for the mayor and council to certify all financial statements and for the city to create a more user-friendly way for residents to view the city's annual budget.
Also, Darcy said financial controls taken from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act should be added to the city's charter. Darcy said the city would be limited in its use of elements of the wide-ranging federal act.
"(Sarbanes-Oxley) is a very large set of financial controls," Darcy said. "There are only some of them which are applicable to a municipality."
Darcy asked that City Treasurer Thomas Magno attend the next meeting of the council's Committee of the Whole to discuss putting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in play. Darcy said he also wanted to get feedback from the mayor regarding his proposal.
Richard Conn can be contacted at 781-398-8004 or rconn@cnc.com.
