To follow up on last Thursday’s final discussion of looting and how museums can create more checks and balances in their acreditation and audits. As Kyle pointed out, Sarbanes Oxley was the result of the Enron scandal.
To summarize the regulations that Sarbanes Oxley introduced in 20002,
-It applies only to publically traded corporations.
-As far as accounting reform, it requires that the audit committee be only of outside directors (instead of having the people within the company on the committee).
-Documents such as the 10Ks have to be signed by the CEO, CFO, etc (this is internal control to make sure those in charge know they are responsible).
-Limits loans to coporate executives
-Also records have to be kept for 5 years and they cannot consult and audit for the same company.
While some of these concepts are in place for museums, such as making employees sign conflict of interest statements and having financial audits, I do wonder if museums need a way of auditing actions such as the purchase of looted objects. It can appear that having other museum professionals conduct museum audits leads to the overlooking of frowned-upon procedures such as in the Met or the Getty. And as Kelli noted, it does make sense that museum professionals conduct the AAM acreditation audits because they understand how museums work and what they need.
The question that I’ve been pondering is, how can museums develop some stronger regulations in regards to areas such as looting. Are there methods that need to be in place to enforce these regulations? And who will enforce the regulations?
I really like this idea. I think it does offer some new layers to the discussion. I’ve been wondering some of the same things, but I’ve only been able to come up with a few ideas. I think as far as the audit is concerned, maybe museum professionals who don’t have any personal ties or wouldn’t benefit from the audited museum’s actions either way could do the audit. (maybe from a museum of similar size but different region?) But, of course, this would be ideal and quite hard to figure out. As far as enforcing, I think that answer is a little more clear cut. In any situation of looting, I do feel that, if AAM-accreditted, they should lose their accreditation. Outside of that, enforcement really should be done legally. That is the only way for-profit businesses can weed out undesirable behavior, and I don’t think non-profits are any different in this regard. Laws may need to be made or expanded, but I don’t know enough about the legal situation to say what exactly would need to be done.