A new effort to launch a petition audit of the City of Parkville has been announced by the political action committee Citizens for a Better Parkville.
The group has created a website at parkvilleaudit.com, along with a Facebook page, and stated the petition audit process could begin next month.
According to the group, the signatures of 450-550 registered voters in Parkville would be required to trigger an audit by the Missouri State Auditor’s Office.
Parkville city administrator Joe Parente said the city staff is proud of its efforts at maintaining accountability and communication with residents.
“While it would be unfortunate for the city to bear the large expense for paying for a state audit, we would welcome an audit to dispel any untruths about the city and to continue to ensure our citizens have confidence in their city government,” Parente said.
Parente said he did not have an estimate of what an audit could cost the city.
The Village of Ferrelview, which recently underwent a petition state audit, received a final bill of more than $40,000 from the Missouri State Auditor’s Office.
Jason Maki of Citizens for a Better Parkville stated mayor Nan Johnston committed to invite the state auditor into Parkville as part of her re-election campaign last March.
Johnston disputes this claim.
“I most certainly did not ‘promise’ an audit,” Johnston said. “What I said was I would welcome a state audit if that’s what the citizens of Parkville want. We have absolutely nothing to hide. Our city is in the best financial condition it has ever been. We employ a professional city manager with 30-plus years of experience, and all our well-qualified department heads use ICMA (International City Manager’s Association) best practices recommendations and follow its code of conduct and ethics.”
Kenneth Wilson, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Johnston in the April municipal election, called for an independent audit of the city during his campaign. Wilson was backed by Citizens for a Better Parkville.
Johnston said her position and that of the board of aldermen is that a state audit would be “an irresponsible waste of taxpayer money.”
Maki said he anticipated the city to object to the cost of an audit.
“The counter to this argument would be that the elected officials have granted over a quarter billion dollars in taxpayer backed incentives and future tax revenues to private entities in less than one calendar year,” he said. “The cost of inviting the state auditor to provide their third-party analysis of these incentives and the other recent events in Parkville are a rounding error in comparison. Audits are a standard practice in business and government; they are part of good governance, to object to it will only heighten concerns.”
Parkville’s most recent independent audit of financial statements and governmental activities was accepted by the board of aldermen in June. In it, Cochran, Head, Vick and Company of Kansas City reported the city’s financial statements for 2018 were presented fairly and in accordance with accounting principals.
The city routinely conducts external audits of its budget and financial statements.
Johnston recently told The Citizen Maki has filed 30 Sunshine requests with the city, with the city producing more than 52,000 in documents, yet Maki had picked up less than half of them.
“Mr. Maki’s various bully and harassment tactics using city, county, state and federal tax-payer resources, while legal, is shameful,” Johnston said. “His unvalidatedå accusations against myself and other elected officials and the city itself have been reported by some media outlets prior to even our knowledge of him filing his various complaints.”