Cleveland_Audit_pic.png

Here’s some light afternoon reading for all of you: a 499-page audit of the CIty of Cleveland’s finances. Submitted a few weeks ago and uploaded online by the state Auditor earlier this month, this document — prepared by Cincinnati-based Clark, Shaefer, Hackett & Co. — looks at the financial situation of the city and its departments for the entirety of 2012.

We’re going through it all, but it’s nearly 500 pages so we could use some more eyeballs on it. See anything noteworthy, interesting, or questionable? Is there anything in there we should look into any deeper? Let me know: leave comment on this post or send me an email at dbrown@clevescene.com and we’ll take a look (if you mention something specific in there, please include the page number of the pdf, not the page number listed within the document — those are inconsistent).

Here’s some information about how Cleveland collects and spends money (page 254 of the document):

operating_ratios.png

I marked some of the main sections of the audit on the right column of the DocumentCloud page (click here to view the document with the column — embedding the column with the audit on here would make the pages too small to read). If you want to download a copy of it, click on the “Original Document (PDF)” link beneath those markups. If you want to see and download other audits from around Ohio, visit the Ohio Auditor of State’s audit search website (either enter the name of the agency you’re looking for or select the county then sort by date on the right column).

Here’s Cleveland’s audit for 2012. Again, let us know if you see anything particularly interesting.

2012 City of Cleveland financial audit (PDF)
2012 City of Cleveland financial audit (Text)

This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2013.

Doug Brown is a staff writer at Scene with a passion for public records laws and investigative reporting. A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., he has an M.A. in journalism from the Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a B.A. in political science from Hiram College. Prior to joining Scene, Doug was a contributing writer for Deadspin.com, reporting behind-the-scenes stories about college sports through public records and developing sources. Doug's work as an enterprise reporter for the Daily Kent Stater was recognized by the Cleveland Press Club (2013 Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards), Society of Professional Journalists (regional and national Mark of Excellence Awards), and the Associated Collegiate Press. He spent the summer of 2012 working for the Metro desk of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and spent previous summers working for Outside Bozeman Magazine and Crain's Detroit Business. His website is dougbrown8.com.

2 replies on “Document: Read A 499-Page Audit of Cleveland’s Finances”

  2. i’ll check over all the parts where there is just plain white paper and no type, that way we can make sure there is no secret message embedded in the paper.

Comments are closed.