EFF urges Gov. Gregoire to veto legislature's raid on performance audit funds
Posted by Mike Reitz - May 05, 2009- The budget bill is a legislative raid on an effective government accountability tool.
- The state auditor is charged with conducting independent, comprehensive performance audits of state and local government bodies to identify inefficiency and provide recommendations for potential savings.
- Initiative 900 was written so that only the state auditor could authorize expenditures from the performance audit account. This enables the state auditor to conduct his performance audit duties without fear of pressure or retribution from other branches of government.
- Initiative 900 performance audits have identified more than $3 billion in cost savings and unnecessary spending. Implementing these ideas would produce far more benefit to the state than the legislature can gain by raiding the performance audit account.
- In this current economic downturn, families and businesses are forced to evaluate spending and identify every potential cost-saving measure. We expect government entities to do the same. This is the wrong time to rob a cost-savings program of funding.
- The performance audit transfers could have constitutional flaws.
Thoughts? Add Comment -
Jen425 said on May 07 2009 at 6:02am
I just don't think the return on investment is really there. The performance audits done so far don't even track the cost of actually doing any of the recommendations. It's like someone 'auditing' my family and saying we could save over $15,000 a year in rent by buying a house. That's technically true, but implementing the recommendation would cost more money per year than it would save. You can't just add up the savings and not account for the costs.
Performance audits aren't supposed to just be about saving money, anyway. I'd encourage anyone interested in this issue to go read performance audits done by people with more experience - like the GAO, the King County Auditor, or other states - and compare them to what we get from our auditors. At first, I wanted to give the State Auditor's Office the benefit of the doubt and some time to learn from their early mistakes, but four years into this, it seems like their primary goal is to get headlines, not to really improve government.
Jeff Einbender said on May 11 2009 at 7:10pm
Former SAO Auditor said on May 13 2009 at 3:45pm
Jen425,
I can tell you from 3 1/2 years experience working for the State Auditor's Office, you have NO CLUE what you are talking about.
Sorry I respectfully disagree-have you ever read ANY of the performance audit reports? Read the one on the Port of Seattle, this is a good place to start.
You are clearly someone with an agenda. And it is easy to hide behind a pen-name (I am doing so now for obvious reasons). That being said, I have to wonder if you have ever even LOOKED at a performance audit report?
government insider said on May 13 2009 at 11:47pm
I have seen first hand the work of the performance audits, and they produce more results than what is in the reports. Some agencies, the smart ones, learn from the performance audit reports issued and implement many of the recommendations and gain cost-savings and efficiencies without ever having to go through a performance audit. The performance audits also keep the agencies on their toes. Some agencies anticipate performance audits and work on improving their processess before an audit is done so the auditors will not have to find exceptions.
Michael H said on May 14 2009 at 12:21am
Jen425: You say "go read performance audits done by people with more experience - like the GAO, the King County Auditor..."
The King County Auditor????!!! What a joke! They aren't even independent - they get their marching orders from the KC council. Their work is nowhere near as comprehensive as the state auditors regular annual audits of King County.
You must be on the receiving end of an audit to take the position you have taken.