WEBVTT 00:00:00.070 --> 00:00:06.650 >> My name is John Hummel [phonetic] I'm the Deputy Inspector General for Montgomery County, 00:00:06.650 --> 00:00:12.180 Maryland, a suburb of Washington D. C. I usually get a chuckle when I tell people 00:00:12.180 --> 00:00:18.240 that what I do is I fight fraud, waste, and abuse every single day. 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:22.610 And in a way that's what we do, I'm in charge of, 00:00:22.610 --> 00:00:26.770 you know a number of people but that's our mission. 00:00:26.770 --> 00:00:32.710 In private industry they have positions called Internal Auditors, and those are people 00:00:32.710 --> 00:00:37.920 who are a part of management but they critically evaluate the internal controls 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:40.710 and processes and procedures. 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:47.070 But they are guided by and subject to the control of the CEO of the organization. 00:00:47.070 --> 00:00:51.040 Inspectors General in most cases, in fact every case I can think of, 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:53.660 are totally independent of the organization. 00:00:53.660 --> 00:01:00.870 We in our case work for county counsel, not for the county exec. The country exec can't fire us, 00:01:00.870 --> 00:01:07.080 really only county counsel has an impact on what we do and even they are kind of hands off, 00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:12.220 we're pretty darn independent and able to write what we think. 00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:19.270 We get all kinds of complaints and issues brought to us, we have a...it's called a hotline 00:01:19.270 --> 00:01:22.930 but it's basically a telephone number people can call and they do. 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:26.780 And that's one of the most, to me, positive attributes of this job, 00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:30.600 is that we actually answer the phone and we talk to taxpayers 00:01:30.600 --> 00:01:35.650 and these taxpayers are calling us quite often it's an absolute last resort, 00:01:35.650 --> 00:01:40.180 it's like I tried this department, I've tried this...I can't any resolution 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:43.080 and these guys are ripping me off, that kind of thing. 00:01:43.080 --> 00:01:49.360 And so that's very fulfilling to be able to address their concerns in areas 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:57.550 like worker's compensation, for example, we get a lot of calls complaining about guys, 00:01:57.550 --> 00:02:03.190 usually guys, who are getting worker's compensation checks every week, very month, 00:02:03.190 --> 00:02:08.820 and yet appear to the whole world totally healthy and possibly doing another job. 00:02:08.820 --> 00:02:12.590 So, for example, that's an area where taxpayer money is going 00:02:12.590 --> 00:02:14.980 to something it just shouldn't be spent on 00:02:14.980 --> 00:02:18.450 and that's just one example there are a whole bunch of others. 00:02:18.450 --> 00:02:23.450 First of all I'm in charge of a number of people so I might have two people, let's say, 00:02:23.450 --> 00:02:28.140 who are working on separate projects; we call them preliminary inquiries. 00:02:28.140 --> 00:02:33.490 These are situations where we got a call from somebody, or we got an e-mail or even a letter 00:02:33.490 --> 00:02:38.290 and that the call or e-mail may have been anonymous or they may have given us their name. 00:02:38.290 --> 00:02:43.550 We always tell people that if you...we can't get back to you with the status of things 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:48.920 if you don't give us your name so they have to decide whether they want to come forward or not. 00:02:48.920 --> 00:02:53.210 But these two people are working on different issues brought by different taxpayers 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:59.510 and the one thing that we do try to do if we're given a name is to get back to your complainant 00:02:59.510 --> 00:03:03.620 and let them know the status of things and ultimately what was done 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:05.460 with what they had a problem with. 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:08.070 So that's pretty much the day, it's in the office, 00:03:08.070 --> 00:03:10.100 which is where we spend most of our time.