Orange County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to dump their performance audit director, who has faced criticism for milquetoast reports, including an upbeat one on a department that was being investigated by prosecutors.
The supervisors voted to end its contract with Philip Cheng and replace him with Peter Hughes, the director of the county’s Internal Audit Department, on an interim basis.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Todd Spitzer and Supervisor Shawn Nelson said Cheng was a “nice” person, but was not up to the job, which is to review various departments and recommend ways to improve them.
“I think everyone thought Mr. Cheng was a very nice man, but he’s not a good fit for the kind of performance auditor Orange County needs to hold our departments accountable,” Spitzer told City News Service.
Said Nelson: “Poor Philip, he’s a sweet man and I don’t wish him any ill will, but I can tell you what I saw in the product we received from (Cheng’s predecessor, Steve Danley) is what we expect.
“Maybe we were spoiled but the level of audit (from Danley) had a clear focus on the problems and directions to what we’re looking for… I know what we had when Danley ran it and we were happy.”
Danley is now the county’s human resources director.
Danley and Hughes did not immediately respond to messages for comment.
Cheng was particularly criticized for a review of the county’s Housing Authority. When it was pointed out prosecutors were investigating the department, Cheng remarked it was not worth including in his report.
“He just said that’s old news, but you can’t say everything’s hunky dory when there’s a pending investigation of our housing department,” Spitzer said.
Several staffers in the department were later fired when it was uncovered they were running personal errands while on the job.
— City News Service