Staff Writer
More eyes will be focused on JEA employees soon.
The JEA Board of Directors’ Finance and Audit Committee met Monday to discuss audit plans for 2010, conducted by Ernst & Young, and 2011, conducted by internal audit services.
In addition to its other rsponsibilities, JEA’s Audit Services investigates ethics complaints received through the company’s ethics hotline. Unlike the City of Jacksonville, JEA has hired an outside company to operate the utility’s hotline service. The cost is $2,800 a year.
Ethics Officer Carla Miller watches over the ethics hotline for the city, which is a cell phone that rarely leaves her side.
The latest JEA report listed nine calls in the current fiscal year and a total of 45 calls since the hotline was created in 2006.
Two calls from the current fiscal year weren’t ethics-related and were referred elsewhere, while seven were investigated by Audit Services. Investigations are closed on all but one of the current year’s calls.
“The amount of time spent on ethics complaints is taking away from audit work,” said Doris Champ, JEA Director of Audit Services. “If the trend continues this way, we may need additional resources.”
The hotline was established to give employees a tool to report abuses of company time or property, but calls have started to come in from outside of the organization.
“It was not intended to be used by an external customer,” said JEA CEO Jim Dickenson. “Its intent was to be an employee hotline.”
The information was discussed as Jacksonville’s Ethics Commission is working with City Council members to develop legislation to change the City’s charter to bring all the City’s independent authorities under the review of the City’s Ethics Commission.
But Dickenson supported the structure in place at JEA.
“We have true separation with our ethics department because we have a third party operating our hotline,” said Dickenson.
“We shared with the City what it costs to have the third party company, but the City chose not to go that way,” he said.
Champ was instructed to report back to the committee when it meets in Dec. 13 to discuss the status of the ethics hotline.
The JEA also is preparing to keep a closer eye on which way its vehicles are going.
The utility has posted a request for bids on equipping its fleet of vehicles with GPS units so it can keep track of the work being conducted by its employees.
Some of the goals of the project are to obtain better data on vehicle usage, condition and location; allow JEA to better manage resources and assign work; and achieve lower costs of operations.
A minimum qualification for contractors to bid is the ability to implement GPS systems for a minimum of 1,000 vehicles and at least 300 non-motorized pieces of equipment.
“We’ve been looking at it for quite some time, and recent media coverage has heightened the notion of a need for this type of equipment,” said Dickenson.
“This is the next evolution of the business,” he said.
“But you have to have a process in place for what you are going to be able to do with the data. You ask for certain bells and whistles in a system and you want to make sure you are going to be able to use them,” he said.
Bids are due by noon Aug. 24.
356-2466