When Washington voters overwhelmingly approved performance audits of public agencies in a 2005 initiative, they created a revenue stream out of existing tax revenue for the state auditor to use in conducting them.
Now a bill has advanced in the Legislature that would use that same revenue stream to reimburse some agencies — school districts and educational service districts, specifically — for the costs they incur during a performance audit.
State Auditor Brian Sonntag strongly opposes this idea (contained in Senate Bill 6450), and we’re with him. It risks undercutting the effectiveness of performance audits, and thus the accountability and potential taxpayer savings they bring.
Performance auditors let agencies know in advance the information they’ll need, and it’s generally information the agency already has, said Jerry Pugnetti, Sonntag’s policy adviser. Costs to the agency should be of no more concern than the costs routinely incurred complying with public records requests.
If this bill, which made it out of the Senate education committee Thursday, becomes law, it’s a sure bet other agencies will demand the same reimbursements in the future. School districts and educational service districts are just a sympathetic place to start.
Sonntag fears that issuing what would amount to a blank check could prompt some agencies to overcalculate their costs and simply stick his office with the bill, diminishing the resources he has to conduct future performance audits. He also worries it could lead to costly delays, because audited agencies wouldn’t have an incentive to provide information quickly and cost-effectively.
In fact, it would eliminate any incentive for agencies to keep their audit costs to a minimum. Why worry about costs when someone else is paying?
Voters knew what they were doing when they approved Initiative 900. They were demanding accountability, and provided a way to pay for it. It’s just beginning to work. Lawmakers will only incur voters’ wrath if they start monkeying with it now.
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