Anchorage's city attorney has raised new questions about the accuracy of financial information given the municipal Assembly and other parties during the final months of former Mayor Mark Begich's administration.
In a new 10-page report sent to Assembly members late Thursday, municipal Attorney Dennis Wheeler also renews his call for a third-party, independent audit of what Begich told, and didn't tell, the Assembly during the turbulent last months of 2008.
In an interview Saturday, Begich again described Wheeler's investigation as politically motivated. He said Mayor Dan Sullivan's appointee has chosen to present facts that fit his thesis and ignored others that contradict it.
Meanwhile, the most persistent and vocal of Begich's Assembly critics, Eagle River-Chugiak Assemblyman Bill Starr, disclosed in an e-mail that he has asked the FBI to evaluate Wheeler's accusations, including claims that Begich's former chief fiscal officer may have misrepresented details about the city's financial health to a bond market analyst.
Wheeler's latest report to the Assembly revisits some ground covered in a 60-page investigative report delivered to the city's legislative body in November, and adds some new fuel, including suggestions that loans between some city agencies were mishandled and that projected revenues from services such as ambulance fees and investment earnings were overstated.
Three Assembly members, generally critics of Begich's performance, have drafted a proposal to fund the sort of independent audit Wheeler recommends.
"It's pretty clear that for the last couple years of that administration, they were robbing Peter to pay Paul and they weren't being straightforward with the Assembly," Assemblyman Dan Coffey said Saturday.
Coffey, along with Assemblywomen Jennifer Johnston and Debbie Ossiander, submitted a resolution calling for the audit Friday.
Several other Assembly members, however, have said they think Begich and his aides did nothing wrong.
Begich on Saturday called Wheeler "an attorney trying to be an accountant." Begich said his team never hid anything from bond market analysts and always gave the Assembly the best information available -- sometimes in excruciating detail.
"You only get half the story from Wheeler's report and people like Bill Starr," he said. "This is the same old broken record, same stuff. They're just regurgitating it because it makes good headlines and it's just raw politics."
Questions about the accuracy and timing of the information given to the Assembly in the waning months of Begich's administration have been a hot topic for nearly a year. Begich resigned the mayor's seat on Jan. 3 of 2009 to become Alaska's new U.S. senator, and less than two weeks later acting Mayor Matt Claman reported that he had found a $17 million deficit in the 2009 city budget. Some Assembly members, and Sullivan, say Begich and his top finance executives misled the city's legislative body as the panel considered and finally voted to approve that budget and four long-term labor contracts.
Other members, including Claman, have said they are confident that Begich and his aides were candid and forthcoming with them about city finances.
Former Chief Fiscal Officer Sharon Weddleton, who has been targeted in some of Wheeler's accusations, has said Wheeler's original 60-page report was filled with mistakes, and that the city attorney is ill-equipped to understand the documents he's spent months poring over.
Wheeler's first report went to the Assembly in November. The politically divided panel voted against postponing action on it until after a January work session to review it in detail, and instead simply accepted it. The 11-member body later reorganized in mid-December, and the new chairman, Patrick Flynn, canceled that work session.
Flynn has said the Assembly, as a political body sharply divided over Begich's performance, is ill-equipped to resolve any questions the community may have. If Wheeler believes he has found evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Begich or others, he should prosecute, Flynn said last month.
Coffey, who says the Begich administration deliberately misled Assembly members on the city garbage utility's budget and the health of a city fund balance, said an independent audit would reveal any wrongdoing.
"Let's find out what happened," he said.
But Claman said Saturday audits are expensive and the city has more pressing problems. "An audit isn't going to prove anything, it's just going to spend a whole bunch more money and we have other priorities in the city."
The Assembly is supposed to be nonpartisan, but generally splits along party lines. Johnston, a Republican, said an independent review would take politics out of the debate.
Assemblyman Mike Gutierrez, a Democrat, said Mayor Sullivan could call for a forensic audit on his own if he wanted to, but would rather force the Assembly to make the call.
"It's good political hatchet work," he said.
Sullivan said Saturday the city attorney's reports appear to show "a continuing pattern of financial mismanagement" but that the original report was prepared for the Assembly, so the Assembly should be the ones to act on the findings.
"If they do decline to take any further action, we will," Sullivan said.
Begich said he doesn't care if the city launches an audit, but estimated it could cost $500,000 or more. If the Assembly -- or Sullivan -- wants to spend that rather than putting money in the next police academy or hiring laid-off firefighters, "that's their choice," he said.
Wheeler's latest report, and the proposal to hire an auditor, go before the Assembly Feb. 2, Assembly members said.
Contact reporter Don Hunter at dhunter@adn.com or 257-4349. Contact reporter Kyle Hopkins at khopkins@adn.com or 257-4334.
By DON HUNTER
and KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News