The group tasked with selecting and retaining the city’s inspector general will revert back to selection mode this month.
It’s a shift necessitated by the sudden resignation last week of Tom Cline, the city’s first inspector general since the office was re-established more than a year-and-a-half ago.
Cline has been on the job just under a year.
The former Federal Communications Commission’s deputy inspector general has hired staff and investigated many complaints in that time, building on a foundation laid by former Palm Beach County Inspector General Sheryl Steckler.
But, due to personal reasons, his last day is May 27.
“I was certainly surprised,” said Circuit Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt, who serves as the chief judge’s designee on the selection and retention committee. “No doubt this sets us back.”
The committee already had a meeting scheduled for May 16 that was to formulate evaluation criteria for the office.
That still will happen, said City Council Vice President Lori Boyer, the committee’s chairwoman.
However, with the recent news, the group will need to discuss listing the job again and look into appointing someone on an interim basis, she said.
Like Senterfitt, Boyer said Cline’s resignation caught her by surprise and adds to the work needed for the new office.
“It’s no question it’s a setback from a timing perspective,” said Boyer. “We were just getting geared up to a certain level … now we have to focus on someone new.”
Boyer said there was “no question” that Cline was a very qualified auditor, but wasn’t sure if the office’s early priorities aligned with what she anticipated.
Much of those efforts, she said, have been investigations instead of auditing functions and reviewing contracts. The latter two, she said, tend to help curb expenses.
She said the relative newness of the office likely has contributed to that, as Cline arrived with a backlog of investigations to address.
Cline said Monday he’s focused on clearing out some investigations and audits his office has been working on in an attempt to make sure the next inspector general comes in with as much of a clean plate as possible.
Despite the pending departure, Cline said he is proud of the work he and his staff have done and was happy with the people he’s brought on board.
As for his decision to leave, he declined to elaborate but said he’d been considering it for a while.
He’ll return to Virginia, where he moved from to take the position.
Cline said people have been supportive while he was here and there hasn’t been negativity about the office.
“Starting a new operation is always tough,” he said.
Cline was supportive of the committee’s efforts to come up with evaluation criteria when the group met two weeks ago. That evaluation will be for someone else, though.
Boyer said her hope is to have someone in place by Oct. 1 the start of the fiscal year.
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