Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon hopes to eliminate scandals of the past with new financial oversight in his administration.

Corroon's chief financial officer Linda Hamilton proposed this past week creating three new positions — one each for the departments of public works, human services and community and support services — which would consolidate and oversee the financials of the departments.

"We're going to try to find gaps and gray areas in policy and procedure," she told the County Council. "I know that everybody's tired of hearing this, but ethics is paramount."

In particular, the new employees are intended to prevent such things as the Fine Arts Division accounting mess and embezzlement at the Equestrian Park, two scandals that received wide publicity during the Nancy Workman years.

"We concur that they were understaffed in several key positions. . . ," chief deputy auditor Dave Beck said. "This consolidation that was supposed to flow up to the mayor's office in the previous administration — when it came right down to it, it didn't happen."

The new program would cost $271,000, a sum that would be carved out from various places in the mayor's budget this year but would be its own line item in future budgets. That created some resentment among council members, who last week were stung by media accounts of Corroon criticizing them for taking in additional staffers for much the same reason.

"The need is as important to us as it is to you," he said to Corroon.

Corroon said the story "got a little more legs than it should have," and in fact chief administrative officer Doug Wilmore asked for and received an apology from the Salt Lake Tribune for its reporting on the matter.

Whether the three new positions will help prevent the scandals that rocked the later years of the Workman administration remains to be seen. Councilman Mark Crockett, for one, is not wholly convinced and wants to see quantitative justification for them come budget time next year.

"It's easy to add a layer" of government in knee-jerk response to problems, he said.

The council also is tinkering with similar issues. It voted this past week to require council approval for "red-lining" of salaries that extends beyond three months. Red-lining is the practice of the mayor giving chosen employees salaries above their grade.

The council took umbrage at the fact that Hamilton's predecessor, after being forced out due to vehicle usage abuses, took another job with the county that was lower in grade but was temporarily red-lined to a comparable salary.

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