In a head-scratcher to remember, Dallas managed to violate the plain language of its own rules by hiring a city watchdog who isn’t an attorney.
Council members voted unanimously in June to hire Timothy Menke to serve as the city’s inspector general tasked with investigating corruption. Just one problem. The city charter requires the head of that office to “be a competent practicing attorney of recognized ability.”
The public deserves an honest account of how this error happened, especially since the inspector general’s office is so relevant to transparency and accountability.
That said, Dallas would probably have been hard-pressed to find someone who exemplifies the “of recognized ability” portion of the charter’s requirements better than Menke does.
Opinion
According to Dallas’ website, he worked for 26 years as a federal agent specializing in fraud investigations and served as the deputy inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Menke gave testimony before Congress in 2010, indicating that he was fighting fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid before it was cool.
State documents also indicate that he worked as director of compliance and investigations for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles — a position his LinkedIn profile lists.
In our view, the fact that Menke isn’t an attorney shouldn’t disqualify him from filling the role. It would be adequate to have other attorneys in his office. But whether we like it or not, the charter is very clear that the inspector general has to be an attorney, and council members did violate that provision.
We’re also wondering how this detail slipped by MGT Consulting Group, the company Dallas hired to conduct the search. We reached out to MGT but did not receive a response as of this writing.
Some argue that this appointment goes against the will of the voters who approved the charter amendment in November. That’s sort of true, but isn’t quite fair. The simplified ballot language for the charter amendment made no mention of a requirement that the inspector general be an attorney.
It’s worth mentioning what brought the city to this point. Dallas is no Chicago when it comes to corruption, but over the last couple decades, we’ve had our fair share of scandals. Bribery has been a favorite.
After Mayor Eric Johnson campaigned on ethics reforms, the City Council voted in 2021 to create the inspector general’s office to help rebuild public trust and investigate malfeasance. The 2024 charter amendment strengthened the office by making it independent.
It’s a bit baffling that years of effort to create this office and make it independent culminated with such an avoidable error. If the city is really so interested in fostering trust, it’ll explain how this happened.