DeKalb’s Interim CEO Focuses on Ethics in State of the County Address

 Interim CEO Lee May presented his State of the County address not once – but twice – first to DeKalb business leaders and then the general public.

Most of his plans May has announced before: hiring more fire and police officers, beefing up code enforcement and streamlining the business permitting process.

But May also said he is issuing two executive orders to take effect immediately. The first order will transfer three internal auditing employees out of the CEO’s Office and into the control of the Board of Commissioners. “To ensure that there is no appearance of impropriety, the functions of operations and the functions of audits should be housed in separate areas,” May told a crowd of about 200 Thursday night. “After all we’ve been auditing ourselves for quite some time, and you can kinda see how that’s worked out for us.” May’s veiled reference to the Ellis case drew laughs from the audience.

The second executive order creates a blue ribbon commission. May says the commission will study ethics ordinances of governments around the country and make recommendations on how DeKalb can improve its own ethics policies.