Initiative stresses performance audits

By Susanna Ray

Herald Writer

EVERETT — Tim Eyman’s former right-hand woman is switching gears with a different kind of initiative.

Rather than trying to cut taxes in response to taxpayers’ skepticism, Suzanne Karr, an Everett accountant who was the treasurer for Eyman’s Initiative 695 and other measures, now wants to restore voters’ faith in government by making sure agencies are using those taxes well.

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And instead of an initiative to the people, she’s working on an initiative to the Legislature. I-257 would require the state auditor to audit every state agency’s performance to see where money could be saved — a particularly relevant concept in this gloomy financial year.

But as Karr split with Eyman and no longer has his name recognition to get public attention, she’s having a hard time getting the 200,000 signatures needed by Jan. 4 to send I-257 to the Legislature. The events of Sept. 11 are also working against her because people’s attention has been on terrorists instead of taxes in recent months.

"The timing has been difficult," Karr said. "But you just keep plugging away."

Karr said she decided to run this initiative after working on I-745 with Eyman last year. That failed measure had a provision that would have required a performance audit on the Department of Transportation, and Karr said that people seemed to like that aspect of the proposal even more than the part that would have moved funding from transit to roads.

"(Taxpayers) don’t know where their money goes, but they see more and more going to Olympia, so this is a way to make the government more accountable to the people," Karr said. "This would give a mechanism where government could show that they really are trying to cut the fat."

But opponents say that mechanism already exists with the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, so the state doesn’t need to spend the extra $3 million in Karr’s initiative.

"The performance audit scene is alive and well, and it has been since at least 1970," said Thomas Sykes, an Everett native who is the audit committee’s staff director.

The bipartisan committee is made up of 16 lawmakers. Its staff — 13 research analysts and five support staff — is nonpartisan and conducts performance reviews of state programs, for the most part. For example, the panel recently finished evaluating the effectiveness of the state’s WorkFirst welfare reform program. Sykes said the committee expects to do 28 performance reviews over the next two years.

But the panel doesn’t audit entire state agencies, as Karr would like, and she contends it isn’t successful because it’s under the purview of the Legislature, which makes it "less than independent." For example, now that Democrats control both the House and Senate, they might bury any audit committee findings that would embarrass the state’s Democratic governor, she said.

The citizens’ committee that Karr’s initiative would create would not only be more independent but would have more visibility and accountability, she said.

State Auditor Brian Sonntag said he’s wanted to do performance audits ever since he came into office nine years ago. Right now, the auditor’s office basically can only do financial reviews to make sure agencies’ books are being kept properly and that there’s no fraud, without questioning whether the money is being spent wisely.

If he’s given the authority and funding to do performance audits as well, Sonntag said, it would likely save the state three times the amount the reviews would cost and it would be more independent, without duplicating the legislative group’s function.

"Our scope alone would be different — the fact that we work directly for the citizens of the state, not for a legislative committee," Sonntag said.

But Karr, has less than a month before the signature deadline, and she can’t afford to hire paid signature-gatherers. Her Web site lists the Alliance for Washington’s Future as the source of funds to support it.

"I’ve not been getting a lot of money, even though I mailed to the same list Tim (Eyman) has. They sent him bigger checks, and I know that because I used to be his treasurer," she said, laughing.

You can call Herald Writer Susanna Ray at 425-339-3439

or send e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com.