Odious Mary Berry has finally left and now it's time to
shovel out the US Civil Rights Commission:
For the first time since Jimmy Carter was president, Mary Frances Berry was not an official participant in a meeting of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR). It was also the first USCCR meeting under new leadership since 1993 when then President Bill Clinton appointed Berry, a professor of civil rights history in Pennsylvania, as chairwoman.
And aside from ole Mary's well known political hijinks and her mistreatment of minority members of the Commission, detailed in the article, there were a few other problems:
The USCCR's new staff director, Kenneth Marcus, told commissioners at Friday's meeting that Berry's departure does not mark the end of the agency's troubles, or examinations by the GAO and Congress.
"Overall, the picture is not good," Marcus said. "The agency is now, managerially and in terms of financial controls, at a low point, lacking many of the basic internal controls that most agencies have and are expected to have."
Marcus said many of the problems are described in prior audits from the General Accounting Office, the agency that recently changed its name to the Government Accountability Office.
"The GAO's reports paint a portrait of an agency that was allowed to run out of control, with little financial control, weak management and little accountability," Marcus said. "They are a wake-up call for this agency, that we must implement substantial change and reform in order to meet our fiscal responsibilities and restore public trust and confidence."
The new staff director noted that Congress had recently requested a large volume of documents from the USCCR in order to conduct its own inquiry into the agency's management structure and financial condition.
"I have no reason for confidence in the extent to which congressional requests have been complied with in the past," Marcus explained, adding that his attempts to remedy that situation are being hampered by the former staff director, Les Jin.
"He has refused to engage in any communication with me concerning the condition of the agency," Marcus explained. "In many instances, staff report to me that certain actions material to the financial status of the commission were within the knowledge of Mr. Jin and are not known to them."
Marcus assured the commissioners that steps had already been taken to ensure that future congressional requests would be complied with fully and in a timely manner. He also detailed difficulties in completing an ongoing audit of the agency's balance sheet for Fiscal Year 2004.
"I have also, within the last few weeks, heard from our auditor that, when they arrived at the commission, they found that there was no general ledger, whatsoever," Marcus said.
The USCCR's accounting was handled by the Bureau of Public Debt in the Treasury Department until the end of Fiscal Year 2003. At that time, the bureau notified the commission that it would no longer provide that service.
"Based upon our experience in servicing your agency, we believe there is inadequate management, control and oversight of your agency's funds," the bureau wrote in a September 2003 letter.
"In other words," Marcus said, "the commission's financial controls had deteriorated to the point last fiscal year, that another agency of the federal government refused to continue to service its account."
Hmmm, Mary sounds like a perfect candidate for an executive gig at the United Nations!
