Taxpayers cover costs, either way

Regarding the Feb. 8 editorial, “Performance-audit law doesn’t need changing”:

Of course state Auditor Brian Sonntag strongly opposes SB 6450. His agency has grown in size, budget and power as a result of the initiative authorizing performance audits. Funding all costs resulting from it would eliminate some of that growth.

Audits, whether performance, financial, or for regulatory compliance, require significant participation by both the auditor and the auditee. Requested data may exist, but it is rarely in a form requested by, or useful to, an auditor. The auditee must invest time, and therefore money, creating and/or converting data into an appropriate form. People directly involved with the process, whether in government or private enterprise, would tell you that costs incurred by auditees often equal or exceed costs incurred by auditors.

Washington citizens voted to require performance audits of government agencies and they provided a funding source to pay for those audits. Failure to recognize that both sides at the table are incurring costs during any audit is myopic at best.

The important question regarding the initiative is this. The majority of local school districts are required to use an antiquated accounting and reporting system which focuses primarily on proper compliance with state regulations and doesn’t allow for recording any data correlating spending with program effectiveness. So, exactly what kind of performance is being measured by these audits, education delivery and quality, or just more compliance? The average citizen will not be happy with the answer.

Taxpayers are covering the full cost of performance audits either way. SB 6450 will just use tax dollars from the auditor’s account for all costs of performance audits instead of taking half from a local school district’s education account. Which scenario looks more like the “transparency in government” editorial boards so often demand?

Jim Scott

Snohomish