As Joe Lombardo continues to put his own interests first and totally disregard what’s best for Nevadans , there’s now yet another reason to believe that he’s hiding something from Nevadans.
Shocking new reporting from the Nevada Independent details how Lombardo fired the top auditor of Nevada’s state agencies after nearly two decades of public service across multiple administrations with no cause or prior warning due to wanting a “change in leadership.” This isn’t the first time Lombardo has disposed of well-respected and independent public servants, either. While attempting to avoid the consequences of his ethics law violations, Lombardo ignored the request of a Republican member of the Nevada Ethics Commission for reappointment just to appoint two of his cronies, who were the only commissioners to vote against sanctioning him.
What kind of trouble is Lombardo trying to escape now?
Read more below:
The Nevada Independent: Top state auditor let go as part of Lombardo admin requested ‘leadership change’
January 9, 2024
- The top auditor of Nevada state agencies said he was made to leave his role earlier this month after officials from Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office told him they wanted a “change in leadership.”
- Warren Lowman had worked within the state’s Division of Internal Audits for the past 16 1/2 years and has served as its administrator for the last five years. His departure was not publicly announced by the state, and he is still listed as the administrator on the internal audit staff website as of Tuesday afternoon.
- In a phone interview Tuesday, Lowman declined to discuss specific details about the audits he’d been working on but said the Jan. 2 request to step down came as a “surprise.”
- “I was never given any indication that they weren’t happy with my performance,” Lowman told The Nevada Independent. “We had had several executive branch audit committee meetings, and there was never any feedback on the substance of those in a negative way. I’ve been doing what I’ve always been doing.”
- Recent audits from the division have spurred discussions on how the state compensates inmate firefighters, revealed a lack of transparency from the contractor running a state veterans nursing home and showed a need for improved management of transportation services by the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
- The notification came as Lowman and the division have been creating an audit under a Lombardo executive order to compile third-party audits assessing school districts and charter schools. The division has also been doing some other audit work on collective bargaining agreements that the governor requested and a follow-up on a previous audit assessing the Department of Administration’s handling of the state office building purchases.
- Lowman served under four administrations of both parties while at the Division of Internal Audits. He said he’s never received a complaint about his audits, and working with the governor’s office on the recent audits was a “collaborative process” that didn’t turn up any issues.
- “We let the evidence take us to where it takes us. Lots of times, we get audit information from staff members who we are auditing. We get fraud, waste and abuse hotline calls,” Lowman said. “The audit process itself is fairly detailed and robust … I was never informed that anybody had a problem with how we were approaching this.”
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