City of Marco Island Finance Director Bill Harrison, 62, retired Tuesday morning effective immediately.

While Harrison discussed his desire to retire with city officials during the last two years, the decision to accelerate the process came amid scrutiny of the city’s financial practices and an Oct. 20 City Council decision to bid a city-wide thorough audit spanning back five years.

Harrison declined to comment Tuesday, however City Clerk Laura Litzan believed that the decision was prompted by the political atmosphere.

“I’m certain given what’s happened he said ‘I don’t need to do this anymore,’ ” Litzan said.

Scrutiny of Harrison followed the release of a transition report from former interim City Manager Dana Souza to current City Manager Steve Thompson in May.

The transition report included questions that Souza, the city’s current Parks and Recreation director who officially resigned Oct. 15, posed to Thompson, just as Thompson entered as the new city manager.

In the report Souza recommends that Thompson may want to seek answers to questions that Souza identified within the finance department in his eight weeks as interim city manager.

“ ... I believe there are management and oversight issues in (the finance) department. I believe these issues could include: Management apathy; a practice of cleaning up project account overruns versus managing project accounts; unauthorized moving of expenditures from account to account; misleading City Council ... ,” Souza wrote in the report dated May 12 to Thompson.

Thompson has said he addressed all the financial concerns raised in the transition report and saw no need for alarm. He said the only change he believed needed to be made was better communication with council, which he says is now being provided. He added that if communication is still not adequate for council it can be addressed.

“Bill Harrison is a great finance director and a good man ... Everyone has a limit to the amount of negativity they can take,” Thompson said.

He added that while “there is no issue that isn’t a legitimate public discussion,” he believes “the tone of the discussion” on Marco is “very negative” and events similar to Harrison’s departure will continue if the newspapers, City Council and residents “choose not to elevate the discussion.”

Councilman Chuck Kiester said he sees it a bit differently.

“If there are questions about the integrity or even the legality of what city directors have been doing that has nothing to do with being negative. It has to do with needing to straighten out the mess,” Kiester said.

He added that he was concerned about previous public requests for bids before council even approved the projects.

“That’s just something I could actually prove. So they withdrew the bids ... I suspect that was only the tip of the iceberg,” Kiester said and added that the problems he is personally aware of all come from before Thompson’s time with Marco Island.

The examples of concerns Souza raised included a request made in May by Public Works Director Rony Joel for a $9 million transfer from the 2009 budget to the 2008 budget.

It was for a water project council approved in April. Council had not been advised that the project was not funded in the current year’s budget.

Souza said he also learned $600,000 was transferred from the general fund to the utility fund for the North Collier Boulevard project without council approval.

Souza told Thompson in the report that he found the North Collier Boulevard project was nearly $800,000 over budget.

Subsequently, a report released Oct. 13 by Finance Director Bill Harrison and Joel states the approximate $40 million Collier Boulevard reconstruction project was under budget by about $2.5 million.

Thompson said it is not unusual for final project costs to differ from estimates earlier in the projects and supports a forensic audit if it’s a priority to remove doubt.

This is not the first controversy that surrounded Harrison’s departure from a job. Before he began working for the City of Marco Island in 2002, Harrison served as the City of Naples assistant city manager for 11 years. He resigned from Naples in 2002 following an investigation into Naples’ finance department, which revealed Harrison violated state laws.

According to Naples Daily News reports in 2002, it was determined that Harrison approved invoices “without council approval and without a contract, and the bill was paid in an expedited manner without following proper procedure.”

Marco’s former City Manager Bill Moss, now with the City of Naples, said that he hired Harrison as the City of Marco Finance Director in 2002 despite the controversy because he felt the incident was isolated.

“He learned his lesson and I didn’t find that it would be a repetitive problem,” Moss said in a phone interview Monday.

Moss added that he saw “no relationship” and “no similarities” between what occurred in 2002 and the concerns Souza raised in May.

“It sounds like some people don’t understand government finance,” Moss said.

Chairman Trotter said he believed “Harrison addressed the questions and the forensic audit will go further into addressing those questions so council will be aware of any financial irregularities if they exist.

“I think there are questions that need to be looked at. You don’t make a judgment until you have the information,” Trotter added.

Thompson said when coming in as the new city manager he does not question earlier decisions made by directors on who to hire.

“I don’t revisit the hiring of employees. I look at what Bill (Harrison) does today and he does a very nice job,” Thompson said.

Purchasing Manager Bob Creighton will serve as the interim finance director, Litzan said.

Harrison is also going to remain available to answer any questions Creighton or Thompson may have and Thompson said a national search for a new finance director will begin. He hopes to fill the position by Jan. 1.

Harrison worked in government finance for 30 years in Colorado, Texas and Florida. His salary at the time of retirement was $101,841, plus a 30 percent benefits package.

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