Michael Howard is running for a third term as Summit County Auditor against fellow Democrat Cindy Marchant Keyes, who is the Summit County Health Department's business manager.
One of the two will almost certainly be the county’s next auditor; which one may be decided next week. If one gains 60% of the votes at the Democratic convention April 2, theirs will be the only name on November’s ballot. If that doesn’t happen, voters will be able to choose in a June primary.
Howard was first elected auditor in 2014, when the office had six full time employees and oversaw the county’s accounting services.
Now, the office has just two employees, including Howard. And after a botched payroll software transition in 2018-2019, the county reorganized its financial services under County Manager Tom Fisher, resulting in deep cuts to the auditor’s budget.
Automatic payments made under the previous payroll system for functions including health insurance, 401k plans and other retirement services were not successfully carried over, Fisher said, though employees continued to be paid. Fisher said the auditor’s office oversaw the payroll transition.
“Whenever payroll starts to be an issue, it's one of those red flags as an employer, because you don't want to break that trust with your employees, that their pay is messed up,” Fisher said. “But at that time, we had a problem.”
Howard has a computer science degree and has worked in the technology field. He acknowledged there were difficulties in the changeover, but said the county had addressed the issues and moved on.
“Anytime you have software changes that are major like that, sometimes there's always different things that come into play, and things are missed,” Howard said. “And because you try, you know, you try and get it accurate, but sometimes it doesn't work.”
Fisher confirmed to KPCW the ramifications included inaccurate and delayed tax forms for employees, missed health insurance premium payments, missed payments to 401k funds and missed payments to Utah Retirement Systems.
As a result, the county had to spend additional money to solve the problems. Fisher confirmed the county used its contingency fund to hire a consultant to help identify and fix the issues, though he did not say exactly how much the firm was paid.
“It was expensive,” he said.
The county also had to pay a fine for missing payments to Utah Retirement Systems, Fisher confirmed. Records requested by KPCW that would contain the amount of the fine and other information had not been provided as of Friday afternoon.
Following the payroll transition, the county council passed an ordinance detailing the auditor’s functions. The council also removed the accounting duties from the auditor’s office. Howard said the organizational change provides more checks and balances on the county government.
“Two years ago, we made a change at the county where I used to supervise the accounting functions within the county. That is a violation of controls because, if I'm supervising accounting, I can't audit myself,” Howard said. “That would be like me telling myself ‘Yes, Michael, your policies are great.’ So we divided it.”
Howard characterized the diminished budget and staffing levels as a result of the shift in responsibilities from the 2019 reorganization, and said he would request an additional employee during this budget cycle to help expand the office’s auditing program.
Howard also pushed back on assertions that he has been unresponsive and not focused on his auditor’s duties. For the last five years, Howard has been serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said he spends about 10-12 hours per week teaching financial literacy classes.
“That mission is actually kind of a service mission. And I alluded to that on my bio, that I would go down to teach financial skills and mentoring to people in minority communities both in the Park City area and the Salt Lake area,” Howard said. “I do that in the evenings and I do that on the weekends. So I don't see how that's relevant to my work here at the county, because I was here pretty much every day.”
Howard said he works more than 40 hours each week as auditor. For the last four years, he has also been working on a Master’s degree in public administration. He said he recently finished the classwork and is working on his dissertation.
Howard said he is running for one more term to finish some projects and expand others, including some audits of county operations that were emphasized in the 2019 reorganization.
Keyes has gained the endorsement of four of the six elected officials that lead the other county departments, including the clerk, treasurer, assessor and attorney.
