The Mandeville City Council is still struggling to define the duties and authorities of the city’s new audit committee.

Thursday night the council voted against accepting the proposed charter presented to them by the committee, and at the same meeting, the council introduced an ordinance, that if approved would do away with the committee all together.

Last month the council tabled the approval of the committee’s charter, asking City Attorney David Cressy to review the document and clarify some issues in it. Last month, Cressy expressed concern over some of the wording in the document that would give “unrestricted access to all activities, properties, personnel and records.” Cressy stated at the last meeting that he did not think this is really what the council intended with it set up the committee.

Cressy questioned how much power the council wanted to give to an appointed board. There are also questions about who should serve on the board and who should be allowed to vote on the board.

One train of thought allows council members to serve on the committee in an nonvoting capacity and another train of thought has the citizens serving on the committee in a non-voting manner, giving the three council members who sit on the committee, Trilby Lenfant, Jerry Coogan and Jeff Bernard, all of the voting power.

Cressy said he has yet to meet with Bill Haacke, the audit committee member who drafted the charter. He will meet with him on Monday and hopes to get all of the answers to his questions.

Lenfant wanted to table the vote on the charter again this month, but Coogan motioned to throw out the resolution on the table and to start from scratch, with a whole new charter coming before them at the next meeting.

However, Coogan also proposed Thursday night throwing out the whole idea of an audit committee, stating that after further review he does not think it is needed or serves any purpose.

At Coogan’s request, the council introduced an ordinance Thursday night to repeal the previous ordinance instituting the audit committee. Coogan said the audit committee charter “attempts to extend the scope of the audit committee far beyond the original intent of the City Council.”

He said the city charter addresses the council’s responsibilities to have an external audit performed annually and to ask for internal audits to be performed when it deems necessary.

Coogan said if he is charged with this responsibility as an elected official he feels it would not be in the best interests of his constituents to pass that duty off to non-elected individuals.

Cressy, too, pointed out Thursday night that the home rule charter already gives the council the authority and the responsibility to request audits.

And interim Mayor Edward “Bubby” Lyons also questioned the need for the committee.

“What authority does an appointed committee have to do another audit that you (the council) wouldn’t have,” Lyons said Thursday night. “It is unnecessary, and I believe it is violation of our city charter.”

Audit committee member Glen Runyon questioned if the council has had the authority to and been charged with conducting internal audits, why hasn’t it been doing so.

“The council has never done that oversight before,” Runyon said.

Cressy said he “thinks personally the internal audit thing is a good idea,” but added that the charter they proposed “begs for problems.”

Both items are expected to come back before the council at its January meeting.