Good Cities Don’t Audit Themselves

Slide from presentation by Kyle O’Roarke, representing the firm that Palo Alto City Council is paying $1.3 million to “audit” City services.

Tonight at the Palo Alto City Council meeting, the Council unanimously voted to approve a report from its new outsourced auditor (which it engaged after defunding an entire city office and eliminating a dozen city jobs). That report made no conclusions, and offered no recommendations by design. It was merely a plan, and not even a good plan at that. And for this, taxpayers shelled out $1.3 million based on a deception that this…