For 21 years, the City of Marion had an Information Systems Committee on its books, a committee with the power to oversee every piece of the city’s technology. Yet, as a Marion Watch investigation reveals, according to official Marion City Council Summaries, this committee was a ghost.
For 19 consecutive years, its members were unknown, it held no recorded meetings, and it remained perfectly silent as the city’s $935,000 New World software was purchased, implemented, and began to fail—immediately leading to over 20 state audit findings, theft by a city employee, and a fiscal crisis. The committee’s entire purpose should have been to vet major IT purchases. The fact that the largest IT purchase in recent history (New World) was done without its involvement (or at least any public record of its involvement in Marion City Council minute summaries) means the committee failed in its primary duty, or it was intentionally sidelined.
Then, just as the full, multi-million dollar “Silent Sabotage” of the city’s finances was being exposed—and months before a new mayoral administration was set to take office—the committee was abruptly and unanimously eliminated.
The official records, when pieced together, paint a deeply suspicious portrait of deliberate, multi-decade neglect that allowed the city’s current IT crisis to take root and fester, all while the designated “watchdog” was kept dormant.
Ralph Smith, responded to our request for comment. Smith, whose technical background includes serving as a highly specialized 34 Delta (Data Processing Equipment Maintenance Man) in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, stressed that Marion’s lack of oversight has left its budget vulnerable.
Smith’s military role required high security clearance and involved working on large-scale information technology machines, stated that Marion must undergo a deep dive forensic audit due to the information uncovered by Marion Watch and proven with official documentation.
Statement from Ralph Smith:
“Committees are formed to relieve the workload of full council. The committee is supposed to research a specific issue, investigate all the possibilities, and make a recommendation to the full council. If a committee is formed but never meets, then there are several possibilities why. One could be that the committee was not needed in the first place. It’s possible that the committee was formed for something that was anticipated to happen but never did. Another possibility is that the committee was formed but never kept a physical record of its meetings. If this is the case, then the Public Records Act (Sunshine Law) was violated at every meeting.
There could be a couple of reasons for not having a record of meetings:
1) It may have kept records but those records were destroyed, either intentionally or unintentionally.
2) The committee may have never met, but was created as a cosmetic for the administration (ticking a box that says, “Yes, we have an IT committee).
No matter the reason, the committee should have been responsible for researching, investigating, and recommending a course of action to council regarding the major purchase of a financial accounting system costing nearly one million dollars. That did not happen, therefore; it would indicate a failure of both the administration and city council as a whole.”
A Manufactured Crisis: The $935,000 “Emergency”
The story begins in 2008. Under a new Democratic supermajority administration and facing a severe financial crisis from the Great Recession, the council approved the purchase of a new accounting software system called “New World” for $935,000.
Worse, it was passed as an “emergency” measure, bypassing the normal three-reading process.
This “emergency” designation is a major red flag. In any competent IT department, software license expirations or hardware incompatibility are not sudden crises; they are predictable, long-term events that are budgeted and planned for years in advance. Claiming an “emergency” to justify a million-dollar purchase suggests either gross mismanagement or, more suspiciously, a manufactured crisis to force a vote, bypass public debate, and ram through a pre-determined contract.
To put this in perspective, here is a standard IT industry timeline for such events:
Hardware (Servers): A server’s “End-of-Life” (EOL) date is publicly announced by the manufacturer 5 to 10 years in advance. A competent IT department would begin planning the replacement at least 1-2 years before that date.
Software (Licenses): A critical software license is a contract with a fixed end date. The expiration is known years in advance and is a recurring line item in the annual budget. Vendors typically send renewal notices at least 12 months (usually more) before the expiration.
The idea that this was a “surprise” emergency is not credible. This was a failure of basic planning that a functional oversight committee would have caught.
During this entire emergency process, the Information Systems Committee—the one body meant to provide oversight on such a purchase—was nowhere to be found.
The financial maneuvering didn’t stop there. Ordinance 2008-102, passed just one month later, shows the administration had to immediately “make a cash advance” of $300,000 from the city’s General Fund just to make payments into the new “New World System Fund”.
Officials Confirm: Oversight Was a Sham
The committee’s inactivity is now confirmed by former City Auditor Robert Landon. In a recent statement, Landon, who also served as a councilman, explained the committee “existed on paper but had not been properly convened, staffed, or tasked for years.”
He confirmed this is “not speculation,” but is “confirmed by the lack of meeting minutes, missing policy records, and the absence of any documented oversight on IT access or spending”.
Landon, who chaired the dormant committee from 2018-2019, alleges his efforts to add transparency (like video upgrades) were “stalled because they challenged the comfort of a status quo that benefits from confusion and control.” He blames “systemic neglect and political obstruction” for silencing oversight. Landon advised that “the committee held meetings during my time but there’s no documentation before or after.”
The “Silent Sabotage” Begins
The software, purchased without oversight, was a disaster from the start.
2011: The State Auditor slammed the city with 12 findings in the 2009 audit and 22 findings (including 11 repeats) in the 2010 audit, citing a “lack of fiscal management and reporting”. The findings explicitly mentioned that city employees were “not properly trained” on the new software and that “bank reconciliations [were] not… performed in a timely manner”.
2015: A new Utility Billing supervisor, Brenda Nwosu—appointed in 2010 after the long-time supervisor was fired for “not fully embracing the new software”—was herself fired for stealing over $34,000.
2021: The pattern of failure continued. Former Auditor Robert Landon, who inherited the broken system, failed to remit income taxes to the IRS. This critical error went undetected for seven months, ultimately resulting in a $154,399 finding for recovery against him.
The fact that it took years to discover the 2015 theft—and that a complete failure to pay federal taxes could go unnoticed for seven months in 2021—are all bright red flags. This is irrefutable proof that the software’s legally-mandated financial controls, which are designed to catch such errors immediately, were not just misconfigured but effectively disabled.
The Information Systems Committee remained silent.
In 2025, officials in the new Collins administration confirmed the true nature of this “Silent Sabotage.” They advised Marion Watch the State Auditor’s office was aware that only the former Auditor (Kelly Carr) and her Deputy Auditor (Cathy Chaffin) knew the “workaround” to perform reconciliations on the broken system. They have confirmed that this crucial information—along with the knowledge of the misconfigured software and disabled modules required by law to safeguard taxpayer funds—was not passed on to the incoming Landon administration in 2020, ensuring the system would remain a ticking time bomb. Flaws were also not disclosed to the incoming Collins administration.
A Brief Reappearance, Then a Silent Death
After 19 years of being a “ghost,” the IT committee suddenly reappeared in the January 1, 2022, organizational minutes, when members are finally named: Rollins (Chair), Meade, and Feliciano.
This is the first time in 20 years members are publicly listed in summaries.
On April 11, 2022, the council was officially warned of the time bomb. Auditor Meginness admitted that the New World “bank reconciliation module… is not currently being used,” and Treasurer Reese admitted he was “not trained on the New World system”.
This was the IT committee’s moment to act. Instead, it held no recorded meetings for the entire year.
The final, suspicious act came in 2023. As consultants from Veritas began uncovering the full extent of the sabotage, the committee was quietly killed. On April 24, 2023, the council voted 9-0 to eliminate it permanently.
This vote occurred just months before Mayor-elect Collins would take office. In a move that defies logic, the council eliminated the only committee dedicated to IT oversight at the precise moment the city was entering a multi-million dollar financial crisis. No public reason was ever given.
A System Rotten to the Core: What Veritas Found
Marion Watch Investigates, which has been looking into this situation since late 2017, had long speculated that key software controls were misconfigured. The 2023 investigation by consulting firm Veritas proved those suspicions were correct.
Key Module Not Implemented: Veritas confirmed what the Auditor admitted in 2022: the bank reconciliation module was “underutilized” or “has not being fully used”. A November 2023 press release from the Auditor finally confessed it was “not implemented correctly” from the start. Vertas also stated that there is evidence of reconciliation and other issues prior to 2020.
Misconfigured Settings: Consultant Greg Blate stated “some of the system settings in New World… are not accurate“.
Data Corruption: Blate demonstrated the severity of this. By changing a single setting—with no financial data change—he created a $137,000 difference in a report total. He also found reports that should have been identical had “differences of upwards of $600,000”.
Incorrect Automation: The system was found to “automate certain transactions, and it books them into cash for non-cash transactions“.
A Culture of IT Chaos
The lack of software control was matched by a stunning lack of physical and access security.
IRS System Lock-Out: Auditor Meginness reported she “had previously been locked out of the system” used for filing IRS 1095C forms, contributing to massive penalties.
“Google Scam”: A fraudulent purchase was made with a city card, which was blamed on a simple “lack of fraud education” rather than a failure of IT security controls.
The Treasurer in the Server Room: In a move that stunned observers, City Treasurer Reese was placed in a “supply room” that Auditor Meginness confirmed contained the city’s server. Mr. Ratliff noted a security camera was also in the room, monitoring the Treasurer and “all of the city account numbers and information”.
In 2025 the Auditor of State released the fical year 2021 audit: The audit detailed IT controls were still loose. The City’s “New World” financial software had a permission setting that allowed users to simply “override budgets.” Resulting in General Fund-Transfers Out: Spent $1,150,886 over its legal budget, Fire Fund: Spent $625,738 over its legal budget, Police Fund: Spent $567,688 over its legal budget. Furthermore, this audit cited a ($138,266) deficit in the Police Fund and a ($48,213) deficit in the Fire Fund. “Off-the-Books” Account: Auditors also discovered a “Cashless Evidence Room” bank account. This account was not included in the City’s official financial report or its accounting records. An “off-the-books” account is a major finding because it operates outside of all public oversight and financial controls. There is no way to know if the money in this account was used legally, as it was hidden from the official accounting system and, therefore, from the City Council and the public.
A Call for Accountability
This crisis was not created in 2023. It is the predictable outcome of nearly 40 years of loose financial and information technology control issues that have plagued Marion, greatly increasing when the New World system was implimented. The “Ghost Committee” was a feature, not a bug, that allowed the administration to operate without oversight.
The consequences of ignoring industry-standard controls—like segregation of duties, audit log reviews, and physical server security—are severe and the consequences are predictable to any competent IT professional.
The city has already faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in new IRS penalties, a $5,941 fine from the pension fund, over $1 million spent for Veritas to reconcile just one year of financial data, and the loss of taxpayer funds to theft.
The Information Systems Committee remained silent, the software issues were left unaddressed, and the cycle of failure was allowed to continue, costing the taxpayers of Marion millions in lost funds, penalties, and broken trust.
Please note:
This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin.
Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.
Written by 
