An early audit report has reintroduced us to Goochland’s frequent and familiar foe: Mismanagement.

Mismanagement has wreaked havoc in the county for years, according to a forensic audit of the utilities department last year and this year’s countywide review.

But how could this happen?  And how could it keep happening? 

Many are asking that those responsible be held accountable, and that is a natural impulse to news that 40 reporting errors, which at times included not reporting anything at all and at times concerned millions of dollars, have taken place over the past year.

But those that could shed some light on the county’s murky management techniques have moved beyond their former roles as Goochland’s county administrator, county attorney and director of utilities.

Those who now lead us have stressed the need for a blank slate on which to write detailed, black-and-white procedures that will prevent this from happening again.

Of course that is exactly what we should do.

But as Rudy Butler noted in front of his fellow supervisors last week, somewhere along the lines the figures got lost.

How, and at what point? And who knew about it? And why?

Well, there are clues here and there to the how of it; some of them are even listed out for us in the preliminary audit report that cites erroneous balances or calculations, a lack of checks and balances and an over-reliance on an auditing firm that, somehow, still stands by financial statements that have been proven flawed.

But who knew about it, and who they told, and why it continued…  those answers remain elusive.

That is one of the most frustrating aspects of Goochland’s continuing administrative debacles—a relentless lack of anyone who will stand up and say, “Hey, here I am!  I contributed to this, I made a few mistakes, and here is how and why, and what I will do to change my ways in the future.”

County Administrator Rebecca Dickson responded to concerns about the county’s fiscal integrity last week; the integrity of those who contributed to Goochland’s fiscal confusion, however, remains in question.