Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/313059
Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation to get I.G. status, and she has designated Director of Internal Audit Jeanette Phillips as the office's I.G. The required training and documentation should be completed by 2015. According to Rushing, it's all part of building "confidence with the public." "We have highly credentialed people," Rushing tells The Sarasota News Leader. "And we have other people from the outside coming in and saying, 'We've looked at it, certified it and said it's OK.'" "It's hard for anybody to legitimately say the people working in that office are not qualified to do fraud investigations," she says. But will the new I.G. really quell unease over the state of county ethics? Members of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations made their mistrust clear Monday evening, May 12, when the organization devoted an hour-long forum to a discussion with Integrity Florida Co-Founder and Executive Director Dan Krassner. Krassner's organization is dedicated to researching ethics issues in Florida and issuing recommendations on how to improve rules and regulations for public officials. Several attendees Monday mentioned County Administrator Tom Harmer's decision last Steve Uebelacker was hired by then-Interim County Administrator Terry Lewis in 2011 to be the county's ethics and compliance officer. Photo courtesy Sarasota County Sarasota News Leader May 16, 2014 Page 23