Dallas’ new inspector general, tasked with uncovering corruption and ensuring the city government complies with its code of ethics, is not an attorney, and his recent hiring by the City Council violates the city’s charter.
A ballot measure voters approved last November to create an independent office of Inspector General, outside of the city attorney’s office, calls for the head of the department to be “a competent practicing attorney of recognized ability.”
How did Dallas miss this work requirement?
The City Council has been deliberating this issue in closed session for the past two weeks. They will meet again Wednesday in closed session to “deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, or dismissal of the Inspector General and seek the advice of the City Attorney on this matter,” as per this week’s agenda.
Political Points
In June, council members unanimously hired Timothy Menke, a former federal official who held a similar role in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Menke, who started his job in Dallas on June 30, has decades of experience tracking and investigating ethics cases for various agencies in and around Texas. He has led hundreds of agents and analysts during his tenure in the federal government. He has helped recover over $15 billion in criminal, civil and administrative cases, according to his profile on the city’s website. In Dallas, he was appointed for a two-year term, with avenues for a reappointment and a $210,000 base salary.
It is unclear exactly where the issue began.
A job listing for the position doesn’t say that the applicant needs to be an attorney, though it does mention that a master’s degree or doctorate of jurisprudence is preferred, and calls for the applicant to have a skillset that demonstrates legal acumen.
The Dallas Morning News requested public records related to the candidates interviewed by the Dallas City Council. The News reached out to MGT Consulting Group, which was responsible for recruiting candidates, and Menke’s front office and left messages that were unreturned.
Council members reached by The News declined to comment or deferred to the city attorney’s office.
Mayor Eric Johnson, who began his tenure with an eagle-eyed focus on ethics reform following back-to-back corruption scandals involving local leaders, hailed Menke’s appointment in June as a means of fostering resident trust in government. Johnson, too, did not respond to a request for comment.
Related:Dallas needs more oversight and stronger ethics rules, review finds
Will Fletcher, president of the Association of Inspectors General, told The News that it’s part of best practices to have an independent legal counsel in the office of inspector general in order to carry out investigations, and that Dallas isn’t the only office to require the top ethics official to be an attorney.
However, typical backgrounds of inspector generals can include attorneys, auditors, law enforcement officials and prosecutors.
“The AIG doesn’t prescribe what experience or background an inspector general should have except that they have a reputation for fairness, dedication to public service, unimpeachable integrity and will act with the independence required to manage an effective office of inspector general,” Fletcher, whose organization represents thousands of members across the United States and internationally, said over email.
In Dallas, however, the original intent leaned toward getting an attorney on board, according to Tim Powers, who was part of the ethics reform task force Johnson created.
Task force members in a 2021 report recommended appointing an official with sufficient legal experience to oversee the OIG. “Most of us on that task force were lawyers, and so when you talk about legal experience, we’re talking about being a lawyer with legal experience,” he said.
City officials took inspiration from the report and changed the city’s laws to create the inspector general division within the attorney’s office. The ordinance also established qualifications for members of the ethics advisory commission, though it did not include qualifications of the inspector general itself.
Powers, once also the city’s ethics reform czar, said the task force had interviewed officers from cities such as Philadelphia and New York and tracked the top 10 peer cities in the U.S. and beyond to come up with recommendations of “what’s best for the city of Dallas.”
The most pressing recommendation had been to establish a boundary between the inspector general and city attorney’s office to avoid conflicts of interest and give the newly appointed official the independence to investigate misconduct, waste and fraud within the municipal government.
“You could easily envision the inherent tension if that function is overseen by a city’s legal department, whose objective is to defend the city and/or limit its liability,” Fletcher said.
The structure of the refurbished office was also what attracted Menke.
“When I saw that the independence of the office was created, that struck my interest in the position,” Menke said at a July 15 ethics advisory commission meeting, where he highlighted his plans to restructure his office and address the findings of an audit that highlighted issues with the department’s case management and lack of independence from the attorney’s office, among others. “We’re kind of a house without a foundation now,” he said.
During that meeting, Menke also said that though he wasn’t an attorney, he would be relying on his colleagues’ legal expertise. Laura Phelan, an enforcement attorney in the inspector general’s office, and Chief Integrity Officer Baron Eliason work with Menke.
City employees directed The News to file for an open records request to get contact details of members serving on the ethics advisory commission.
Last year, voters approved a proposition that waived Dallas’ government immunity if it violated the charter. One resident, John Botefhur, who has run for the City Council before, highlighted concerns at the Aug. 6 council briefing.
“Are the people on this council committed to accountability or tying up taxpayer revenue with expensive lawsuits and subverting the public’s vote?” he said.