Pdx Trib Assassinates Alexis Dow

In a remarkable piece of yellow journalism, the Portland Tribune decides to take a little-deserved -- and highly one-sided -- whack at what looks like one of the better success stories of Metro, Auditor Alexis Dow.

The real reason, I believe, someone sold the Trib on a political hit-piece just before election season, was to pave the way for a new "reform" candidate who will be a patsy for the folks who don't like Dow's honesty and hard work.

I've never met Ms. Dow. But thanks to this pseudo-scandal story, I can be pretty confident she's good people. Good auditors are seldom popular, and Dow has won four "major government auditing awards" and is described by other auditors as courageous.

No wonder someone's out to get her.

Let's review the charges, and look at how author Nick Budnick uses innuendo to suggest what his facts don't support.

First, a seemingly rhetorical question that Budnick should have actually addressed, but doesn't. It's the headline: Who audits the auditor? It's a fine question -- but it actually has an answer, and the answer undercuts Budnick's thesis that Dow is out of control.

In any organization with an auditor, including the City of Portland which like Metro has a directly elected auditor, there's a budget for the audit department. It's set and approved by someone other than the auditor -- by a chief operating officer, or a chief executive, or a board of directors. Auditors don't get to raise their own revenue. So whoever pays for that function is supposed to exercise normal budgetary controls, including reviewing whether the money is spent within the rules. Dow may be directly elected, but that doesn't place her department budget beyond review.

Budnick could tell readers that, but it would undercut his "Auditors gone wild!" schtick. (Indeed, we learn further down that every one of Dow's expenses "had to be approved by Metro's finance unit" -- but that inconvenient fact is not introduced until the tail end of paragraph 8 on page 8, long after the false thesis has been established.)

The front-page, above-the-fold story opens with a list of overstated charges, each with no more than a grain of truth, each of which Budnick will later undercut or refute himself:

1. Although the Metro Charter prohibits Dow from outside employment, she earns $35,000 to $50,000 a year for serving on the Longview Fibre Co. board of directors and two subcommittees, which meet regularly.

2. Dow appears to be working significantly fewer than the 40 hours a week Metro pays her for.

3. Although Dow has three staff auditors in her office, she has repeatedly hired outside firms both to perform auditing work and to help with presentations.

4. Dow travels extensively and pays lavishly for trips only remotely related to Metro, while spending Metro funds on meals, parking and gifts for departing employees.

By playing these early on the front page and burying the details on page 8, Budnick and the Trib gin up their "scandal" - until you turn the page and discover the bait-and-switch nature of the reporting.

Dow is forbidden to have "outside employment" - except her Board of Directors position is not considered by anybody to be "employment" in any legal sense. And Dow didn't just assume it - she confirmed it with the Oregon Attorney General's Office before she first ran. That would seem to be the mark of a careful person who wants to do the right thing.

Budnick's article can only include a sniffy quote from Jewel Lansing about Dow's compensation: “I don’t think it’s illegal for her — but I think it ought to be illegal.”

Oh. So Dow carefully stays within the law, and that means we should criticize her for -- what, exactly? Failing to obey laws that don't exist?

It gets better.

Dow is supposedly working "fewer than the 40 hours a week Metro pays her for." But Dow isn't paid to work 40 hours a week. Dow is salaried. Salaried workers don't get paid by the hour, and can work more or fewer than 40 hours as they like, so long as they accomplish their jobs.

And the evidence is that Dow actually works more than 40 hours a week anyway. Budnick never tries to question this, accepting (as I do) Dow's contention that she works nights and weekends.

Then Budnick changes the denominator. After talking about working 40 hours a week, he rattles off how many hours Dow might or might not have worked on other tasks ... per month.

Here's a key passage:

Dow cautioned that her calendar is only a “planning tool.” But if she fulfilled her plans, she spent 24 work hours on FEI and Longview business in January 2005; 16 hours in March; 41 hours, including time on OHSU, in May; and 37 hours in September.

So, the worst Budnick can find is an average of less than 10 hours a week of non-Metro meetings, and that's what's scheduled. I looked at my own calendar, and I've got at least that much on my calendar too. But I know that I put those there so that I'll know what meetings I might go to (and to prevent double or triple booking myself), not all of which I must go to.

Budnick never attempts to find out how much time Dow really spends at Metro or how many of the outside meetings she really attends, preferring to rely on second-hand innuendo from two admittedly disgruntled former employees:

...[T]wo former staff auditors, Joe Gibbons and Jim McMullin, said that from their observations, Dow spent no more than half her time on Metro business.

...McMullin [...] worked for Dow for more than five years before quitting in frustration.

...Gibbons [...] said he worked for Dow for seven years before quitting in disgust.

I have to wonder how these two tie in to an earlier passage:

With no experience in government auditing, Dow hired top-notch staff, often veterans of the federal General Accounting Office. With their help, she has won four major government auditing awards.

It's hard to imagine Budnick would have omitted telling us if McMullin or Gibbons were part of that "top-notch staff" or were "veterans of the federal General Accounting Office" - more likely, I would guess, they were slacker hangers-on from before Dow arrived, who couldn't cut it under a hard charging and highly effective boss.

The rest of the article withers away under the light of this one sentence:

The Metro expenses she’s racked up on meals, travel and contracting are all “standard business practice” and, she noted, every expense had to be approved by Metro’s finance unit.

Oops.

So, why is the Trib and Budnick writing this tripe? Newspapers love controversy. This fake story by Budnick is much more fun than an honest one with the headline "Effective auditor shines light on Metro, wins awards, is in wide demand."

But that's the real story, based on Budnick's own words:

“...Alexis [...] cares a lot about Metro as an institution,” said former City Auditor Barbara Clark, who encouraged Dow to run for the job.

“I would describe Alexis as a highly competent professional and CPA in the work that she does,” Rasmussen said. “She sometimes takes stands that may be unpopular and may go further (on audits) than someone else who has less courage.”

...Dow hired top-notch staff, often veterans of the federal General Accounting Office. With their help, she has won four major government auditing awards.

Metro officials resist Dow and are hypersensitive about her recommendations, local auditors said. “I think it would take these guys a long time to admit they might have made some mistakes,”said former staff auditor Jim Luckeroff.

So, why would Dow hire outside PR and audit professionals to help her conduct and present her audits? Perhaps because "Metro officials resist Dow and are hypersensitive about her recommendations."

Personally, I believe there's a cabal of Metro groupies and fanatics -- including current and former staff as well as some elected officials -- who want Metro to be more unaccountable, who see honest folks like Dow as an impediment to their secretive impulses, and who are hoping to torpedo her re-election.

Nothing else explains the sudden appearance of a hit piece like this, at this time, aimed at this target, with so little behind it.