An outside auditor says Erie County government has too few internal inspectors assigned to root out fraud.

The county comptroller’s office agrees.

“We just don’t have the people to go out and proactively look for problems,” said Michael Szukala, the chief auditor working for Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz.

The firm Deloitte and Touche LLP, in a letter accompanying its audit of government operations for 2005, said a staff of four internal auditors, not including Szukala, is too small for a county government that spends more than $1 billion a year.

“The size of the internal audit department is not large enough to allow the county to respond appropriately in instances where fraud is suspected,” Deloitte and Touche wrote in the management letter, which recently became public.

“We recommend the county re-evaluate the size, duties and expertise needed of its internal audit department against the demands placed against it,” Deloitte and Touche wrote.

Szukala’s unit is constantly examining facets of county operations. In recent months, it publicized audits of the county’s Holding Center, the assignment of cell phones and other electronic devices to county employees and the county’s use of homeland security money, among other things. Fifty-six more audits are on the to-do list.

But county government also has been hit by thefts in recent years. An employee in the Social Services Department, the county’s largest unit, was exposed in 2006 as the conduit who provided more than $300,000 worth of stolen NFTA Metro Bus passes on the black market. The passes are otherwise provided free to people on welfare.

Late in 2005, a Social Services Department employee was charged with stealing more than $50,000 from a program designed to help poor people pay their rent.

A smattering of county lawmakers at Tuesday’s meeting of the Finance and Management Committee seemed to agree more internal auditors are needed. “The comptroller’s office ought to be better staffed,” said Amherst Democrat Thomas Loughran.

“To accomplish the things I would like to accomplish, I would need a staff of 14,” Szukala said. With another auditor soon to be hired, that would require eight more employees.

mspina@buffnews.com

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