On August 11, 2026, at 18:30 UTC, the Ocala City Council held a special meeting to interview three applicants for the position of Internal City Auditor and to select a candidate for the role. No agenda or minutes were available; this summary is based on the meeting transcript. The meeting was open to the public and recorded. The Council interviewed candidates one at a time, then deliberated and unanimously selected Vincent Iovino.
La Shena, an accountant with more than 15 years of experience, described her background in government and nonprofit accounting, external audit work at CPA firms, and familiarity with the Blue Book and Yellow Book government auditing standards. She said she has used Power BI, would report to the City Council, and would begin by reviewing prior audits, Council expectations, and team operations. She described a past fraud case under the LIHEAP program in which an employee paid a bill for herself; when her director did not want to report it, she went to the executive director, the issue was disclosed to auditors, and procedures were changed to require finance director sign-off.
Vaughn Gritten, an internal auditor with more than 20 years of experience, said she has spent seven years as senior assistant auditor to the former city auditor, Randall Glendrin. She described herself as passionate about internal auditing and said she would work for the City Council. She said she would identify problems through the risk assessment process and hotline reports, would follow the existing 72-hour notification policy, and would provide quarterly updates to Council on audit work, management's progress on recommendations, and the city's strategic plan. She argued the department needs at least three people because a third person provides quality, objectivity, and a mix of finance, IT, and data analytics coverage.
Vincent Iovino, an IT-focused auditor who has lived in Ocala since 2002/2003, described his collaborative risk assessment process, use of FIPS confidentiality/integrity/availability principles, agile audit sprints, and real-time communication through the Rike application. He said he has used AI as a tool in an audit of the procurement policy, but still reviewed and verified AI-generated work. He said he would report to the City Council and would communicate both problems and good news directly. He described an ethical dilemma in which numbers did not match what was presented; he reported the discrepancy to his chief audit executive, and said in Ocala he would report findings to the City Council and keep auditees informed throughout the process.
The August in load is on July 22nd, 2023. We'll have our plot. You guys are all aware, candidates individually. We have allotted group setting. See fit. Introduce themselves and tell you on the record. Now you can new question. Or you could ask one of the ones you've previously asked in the private interview session if you'd like the whole council to hear the answer previously provided or for the question to be answered on the record. Question. Yes, sir. Did everybody have the same questions? Or did you make different questions? No, no, no, no. You all you all ask this each applicant the same question, but everyone had different questions. Okay, that one went over my head. No, we just made it worse. So I yes, I asked all of my applicants the same question, but Councilman Mansfield had different questions. Okay. Each one of you had completely different questions. That's my question. Thank you. You're welcome. So once the group interviews are complete, any council member may make a motion to hire any one of the applicants, and the process will continue until there is a majority vote for one applicant or until no candidate receives a majority vote. Does anyone have any other questions before we begin? Do you prefer I I was going to call call in Is this is this a shade meeting? No. No, no, no, no. This is on the recording recording. They have to stay out there. They're not going to be able to do that. We'll bring them in one at a time. One at a time. Okay. So they're not going to be able to listen to each other. That's correct. And then at the end we'll bring them all in. Okay. Um they can all come in when you debate who you're, you know, the motions, but usually what during the interview process we bring in one at a time. My recommendation would bring in the outside applicant first, and then we can go on from there if that's okay. Is that okay, sir? Yes. All right. I'll get I'll get there. Thank you. Mr. President. Yes. You gave them the option go through making motions until they pick a candidate. They also have the option of not picking any candidates. Yeah, I said that in the thing, or until there's no one pick no one reads.