Birmingham council demands forensic audit

I looked on the Internet and I found another article about auditing. It’s very strange but I’ve never heard about the city Birmingham and the article I’ve found goes about this city! So I looked for more information on Wikipedia. After I’ve done that, I knew that Birmingham is the biggest city of Alabama in the United States. And it is also the county seat of Jefferson County.

Now I’ll tell you more about the article. The Birmingham city council wanted to carry out an audit to know how much money the city had in the bank. The mayor of Birmingham, Larry Langford, claimed that there was a surplus of 13 million dollar, but the budget performance report showed a deficit. An analyst hired by the council said that the deficit could be increase to 27 million dollar but the mayor’s chief of staff denied it. He said that they had a surplus of 13 million dollar and that the city still had incomes.

Councilor Valerie Abbott discussed that they can’t make a budget without knowing how much money they’ve got. After a big discussion with the councilors, the majority voted to request a forensic audit and to continue operations which belong to the budget of 2009.

A recently appeared report shows that Birmingham is almost bankrupt. The county has fallen hopelessly behind on payments and could evolve in the largest municipal bankruptcy in Americans history. There are complaints against the mayor for conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering, and filing false tax returns. The process of Langford will be kept this month (October 2009).

It is very interesting to know what happens in a city you’ve never heard about. Now I know something more about something financial in Birmingham. And I have also smoothed my geography by looking on Wikipedia.

You can find the article here.