With billions of dollars in cuts made to state services, the need to reduce waste and increase efficiency in government should be a given. That’s why the Legislature’s decision to redirect $9.4 million meant to audit the performance of state programs and agencies is so clearly counterproductive.
That’s roughly a third of the funding available for performance audits through Initiative 900, which voters approved in 2005. That investment has paid off handsomely, most notably in a recommendation to launch a tax amnesty program that to date has yielded an astounding $343 million in back taxes for state and local governments.
State Auditor Brian Sonntag has asked Gov. Chris Gregoire to veto $8 million of the funding shifts: $4.8 million that would go into fraud investigations at the Department of Social and Health Services (likely a response to TV news reports exposing the misuse of food-stamp debit cards) and $3.2 million for tax recovery auditing at the Department of Revenue.
Sonntag argues, correctly, that such activities should be paid for with the money they generate. As an alternative, he suggests using some of the tax-amnesty windfall for Department of Revenue auditing.
Sweeping money away from performance audits raises questions about whether lawmakers — and some of the agencies that lobby them — are trying to protect the status quo, whether or not it’s efficient or effective. In a letter to Gregoire, Sonntag notes that using performance audit money to fund other agencies could compromise his office’s independence, potentially rendering it unable to audit DSHS under national accounting standards. He also reminds Gregoire that the Legislature swept even more — $17 million — from performance audits into the general fund in the 2009-11 budget.
It’s no secret that some legislators and others in Olympia dislike the proliferation of performance audits in recent years. They tend to raise uncomfortable questions, and findings that encourage change. But that’s exactly what state government needs, and what voters put in place when they approved I-900: a credible, independent source of cost-saving ideas.
It’s worth noting that Sonntag isn’t being a prima donna about this. He’s not arguing that his office should be exempt from harsh budget realities. The office’s regular (non-performance) audit activities took a 33 percent cut in the current biennium, and another 4 percent in 2011-13. That was appropriate, Sonntag says; all agencies needed to absorb their share of reductions.
But draining money away from proven (and voter-approved) efforts to save public money through performance audits makes no sense. Sonntag’s veto suggestion is yet another idea from his office that’s worth heeding.
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