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Q&A
Measures for ensuring quality and consistency in OIG reports
0:41:51
·
3 min
Council Member Williams inquires about measures to ensure consistent production of quality reports by the OIG's office. Commissioner Strauber explains the statutory protections for the DOI commissioner role and the internal collaborative process for producing reports.
- Statutory protections include the requirement for a statement of reasons if a mayor terminates a DOI commissioner
- The internal process involves careful planning, collaborative review, and streamlined reporting procedures
- The goal is to build towards conclusions and recommendations efficiently
Nantasha M. Williams
0:41:51
Thank you, chair.
0:41:57
I guess I'll start here.
0:41:58
Are there any permanent measures the OIG's office has put in place to ensure that the office continues to consistently produce quality reports?
0:42:07
And I just wanted to, like, ground that question in, something I saw earlier today, or was it last night about the president, like, seeking to fire all of the IGs, which, as you can imagine, is terrible.
0:42:26
And we obviously view your offices are as extremely important, and want the work to continue regardless of, like, who may come and go and whatever administration may exist or may prioritize IG offices over another?
Jocelyn Strauber
0:42:42
So so to take that part of the question first, you know, there are statutory protections in place for the DOI commissioner.
0:42:51
I suppose that if your question is are there statutory protections in place for specific inspectors general, there are not.
0:42:59
But but as the inspector general office for the city, I think the protection we have is is conferred by the protection for the commissioner's role, which requires, among other things, a statement of reasons were, you know, a mayor to choose to to terminate a a DOI commissioner.
0:43:16
There's obviously also the city council confirmation process, which is another way of ensuring both the independence, you know, of the inspector general and also ensuring that that the city council is comfortable with, you know, the qualifications of that person, which could be relevant to the evaluation of any such statement of reasons that might be produced in the event of of termination.
0:43:37
So I think that's the sort of global protection for the office.
0:43:43
Obviously, the law needs to be followed for it to be effective.
0:43:47
So we could have a whole other conversation about, you know, about that.
0:43:52
In terms of the steps that we've taken in in in internally in the office to address the first part of your question to produce quality reports, it's really a sort of planning and collaborative in-depth process that really starts with Inspector Barrett and I, which is and and other members of the executive team and and members of her team, which is first kind of conceptualizing the topics that we're gonna look at, which as we've said can come from a variety of sources.
0:44:21
And then sort of careful planning from the requests that we need to make, the documents and in interviewees we need to access, which we try to make, you know, as tailored and efficient as possible so that we're really getting what we need both so we can get it quickly and also so that we can issue a reports as quickly as possible.
0:44:41
And then a pretty in-depth back and forth in terms of of, you know, outlines, reviewing together, you know, the information that we're receiving, documentation of the reviews that we do, of records that we get, of people that we interview, sort of building towards, you know, the conclusions and recommendations that we make, which are then, you know, in a in a public report.
0:45:03
And the goal of that is to sort of streamline, the reporting process, so we're not in a place where as as work is reviewed sort of later stage when a report is already partially drafted, either inspector general Barrett or I think we need to change it.
0:45:19
So the idea is let's figure out at the beginning what we're gonna do.
0:45:22
Let's readjust as we learn more, as we see what what the facts are showing us, and and let's sort of have each step be building towards that final public report.