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MANAGEMENT UPDATE.

PERFORMANCE AUDITS AND COMMUNITY INPUT

On Wednesday, September 17, Nathan Pickard, the new city auditor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, presented a new and very different Fiscal Year 2026 performance audit plan to the City Council – a plan that was immediately covered by Tulsa news stations.


That was part of the difference. While performance audits in cities, counties and states around the country are often chosen by audit committees or through a quiet internal process, Pickard, an independent who was elected auditor in December 2024, reached out to the Tulsa community to see what residents wanted to see audited.  


For Tulsa and many other governments this was an unusual approach and a fundamental reason that Pickard wanted the elected auditor position. “My whole desire to run was based on getting the community more engaged in their civic life,” he says. In a “Dear Tulsans” letter that accompanied the 2026 audit plan, Pickard explained his motivation. “I believe restoring public trust is imperative and the Tulsa City Auditor’s Office is a crucial part of this, as it holds the government accountable and makes it transparent to the public.”


In the new audit plan, community input led to the inclusion of audits on roads (the most popular choice), homelessness, a look at the city’s authorities, boards and commissions, and a desire to see the result of promises made when voters have been asked to add a half-cent sales tax increment for a special project. (Sales tax is Tulsa’s main revenue source.)


Pickard’s plan to draw on the community will continue when audits are in progress, he says, explaining that he has drawn inspiration from audits elsewhere such as one that was issued from the New York City Comptroller’s office in the spring, in which auditors were sent to collect information from the people who were waiting at bus stops as part of a transit audit.


Pickard’s professional expertise is in data analytics. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Tulsa audit office for seven years, then spent about four years in the private sector and more recently has worked as consultant utilizing his data analytics skills with nonprofits and foundations.


While performance audits are covered by the media in a number of local and state governments, in other places there’s an inclination to avoid too much public attention. While a Tulsa ordinance gives the city auditor wide ability to examine performance, he says a very internal approach in the past has failed to take advantage of that broad authority.  “The history of the Tulsa department was one of caution,” he says.


Although performance audits have been issued in Tulsa since the 1980s, Pickard says that the government function has such a low profile that residents didn’t even know it existed. In fact, when he decided he wanted the job, he ran for the elected position unopposed, which has been a common occurrence. “Part of the challenge of what I’m trying to do is even let people know that they have a city auditor. And the next step is to tell them that it’s not just finance. Because when they hear auditor, they think we’re coming after their taxes.”


In the audit letter accompanying the Fiscal Year 2026 audit plan, Pickard makes it clear that he is seeking input from multiple sources, also including departments heads, city council, and city employees.


Calling on community, as well as internal input, will continue after audits commence, tapping resident and stakeholder concerns on an ongoing basis. As large audit topics are refined, those discussions will help to narrow down the scope of each audit in a pre-planning process that is designed to assess risk, and then target and prioritize the most important questions to explore. 


As he wrote in the letter accompanying the new audit plan, “Voter turnout data trends speak to a declining trust in the government’s ability to deliver on its promises. I believe restoring public trust is imperative and the Tulsa City Auditor’s Office is a crucial part of this, as it holds the government accountable and makes it transparent to its public.”


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