David M. Muir is a candidate for Salt Lake County auditor. Muir Marketing campaign
Evaluating candidates for Salt Lake County auditor will be arduous. Qualifications within the auditing career will be an alphabet soup that doesn’t imply a lot to the common citizen: CIA, CPGM, CPFA and on and on.
Although these “letters” do matter, crucial qualifications are intangibles like persistence, consideration to element and proactivity. Listed below are three tales that present how I'd convey these qualities to the Salt Lake County Auditor’s Workplace.
Discovering the $12 million error
After beginning my profession with 9 years of public service in Salt Lake County, I transitioned to the non-public sector. An accounting supervisor I had beforehand labored with known as. He sounded determined: “Dave, I want you to repair our financials.”
He had been fighting a reporting error of $12 million within the monetary report of a nationwide retailer. This error was missed by the unbiased licensed public accountants employed to audit the annual financials the 12 months earlier than. With no thought the place the error had been launched, he employed me as a result of he knew that I had the persistence to dig into the info and discover the issue.
Again within the ’90s, computer systems had been clunky and it was a frightening job to govern a search via a considerable amount of info. Typically my pc would run all evening processing a command. I misplaced a whole lot of sleep, however with a pair months of fixed work, I discovered and stuck the $12 million error to the penny.
Shortly thereafter, the chief monetary officer of the corporate promoted me to chief inner auditor reporting to the board of administrators. As I started working to audit shops and franchisees, I continued to make use of my persistence to ferret out fraud when issues didn’t add up. After I’m elected, I'll convey that very same persistence to monitoring your tax dollars.
$40 million saved on hearth service
Although I loved the non-public sector, when Cottonwood Heights included, I used to be excited to once more pursue public service by organising the brand new metropolis’s monetary programs.
As the town began, we puzzled if property house owners ought to pay property taxes to the newly created Unified Fireplace Authority district or if the town ought to withdraw from the district and contract for hearth providers like different surrounding cities had been doing for years. As we ready the primary funds, I obtained into the small print, analyzed the prices and located that withdrawing from the brand new hearth authority district would save property house owners $1.6 million yearly in property taxes.
Cottonwood Heights’ residents have saved tens of millions in property tax dollars yearly due to my evaluation. In actual fact, over the previous 16 years, that one choice has saved over $40 million!
That’s the place being detail-oriented advantages the general public. I've the drive and expertise to search out the information and comply with the numbers all the best way to the top. My dedication to element is what makes me the only option for Salt Lake County auditor.
ZIP+4 database and the pandemic
In 2007, the state tax fee was making ready a “ZIP+4” jurisdictional database to assist in distribution of gross sales taxes to native entities. I requested an opportunity to test over the info for the newly shaped metropolis of Cottonwood Heights to make sure it was right. Whereas analyzing the database of ZIP+4 ZIP codes, it grew to become readily obvious that the assigned jurisdictions within the information was 98% mistaken all through the whole state.
The 550,000 “ZIP+4” entries had been extra traces than Excel may help on the time. It was a giant job and never essentially my accountability, however I used to be decided to resolve the issue as a result of accuracy of this information can be crucial for all cities and counties in Utah.
The outcomes of my findings led the state tax fee to right the database so all gross sales taxes, particularly on-line gross sales, could possibly be distributed appropriately, benefitting all entities within the state of Utah. This correction was crucial in serving to gross sales taxes be reported appropriately when the pandemic closed down many in-person companies.
A great auditor is proactive — fixing errors earlier than they trigger bother. My proactivity makes me the form of auditor Salt Lake County wants. A vote for me will convey my in depth expertise, proactivity, consideration to element and persistence to be just right for you.
David M. Muir is a candidate for Salt Lake County auditor and has labored in native authorities finance for over 26 years. He has lived and labored in Salt Lake County his total life, with brief absences for abroad service and faculty attendance.