For the first time in 30 years, lawyers for Milwaukee County have refused to turn over a 2008 consultant’s report on safety issues at the Mental Health Complex to a county auditor investigation, according to the current auditor, Jerry Heer.
Heer said he was seeking the report as part of his probe of safety issues at the complex. That audit was ordered by County Board Chairman Lee Holloway in April, following Journal Sentinel coverage of a federal inspection of the complex that found multiple instances of patient sexual assault and the pregnancy of a patient.
Heer told county supervisors Thursday “we believe that the report may shed light on the Behavioral Health Division’s practices that are relevant to the audit we are conducting.” He did not give the name of the consultant, but said he learned of the report’s existence during the course of his work on the mental health audit.
Heer said it was important to get any information that might help the county to reform its patient care practices in the future. He said he still holds out some hope the consultant report eventually will be released to county supervisors “so stepscan be taken to ensure any problems have been addressed.”
He said he would write his audit report without the information and that it would likely be released in about two weeks.
The decision to withhold the consultant report was made by Timothy Schoewe, the county’s acting corporation counsel, and Mark Cameli, a private lawyer hired by the county in 2007 during a criminal investigation of the August 2006 death of Cindy Anczak. She died from complications of starvation shortly after her discharge from the Mental Health Complex.
It’s worth noting Schoewe said he couldn’t discuss the report or his reasons for withholding it, leaving me to wonder who ordered Schoewe to withhold the report. While it’s uncertain why (or at whose request) Milwaukee County’s corporation counsel won’t release the report, there should be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker wanted that report released, it would already be in the hands of the county auditor.
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