Auditor fires 2 contractors, employee over ‘conflict’ issue
State Auditor Suzanne Bump said she fired an employee and two contractors after they didn’t disclose a potential conflict of interest to her, throwing the integrity of their work into question.
Bump’s stunning disclosure, made yesterday afternoon in a brief statement, came without many details, including the identities of the three people she fired, the nature of the conflict or what audits they worked on.
But the discovery appeared to sow deep concerns in her office: Bump hired an outside accounting firm to review their work and she referred the matter to the State Ethics Commission for further review.
A spokesman for the State Ethics Commission said he could neither confirm nor deny it is investigating.
Bump said all three worked in “data analytics.” After learning of the potential conflict about two weeks ago, Bump fired all three after a “24-hour internal investigation,” her spokesman, Mike Wessler, said.
The accounting firm, who Wessler wouldn’t identify, is now combing through their “recent work,” Bump said.
When asked why Bump waited two weeks to disclose the firings, Wessler said, “We wanted to engage the ethics office and the private firm before making this public.”
A spokeswoman for Gov. Charlie Baker said Bump hasn’t notified the governor about any issues with a particular audit and stressed the administration “believes audits should be conducted in a clear and transparent manner and anticipates agencies involved in any compromised audits will be informed as necessary.”