State Auditor Office Problems Worsen

I ran a campaign to improve the performance of the State Auditor's office, but I did not imagine it would get this bad!

In August last year, I reported on the continuing disarray in the Office of the State Auditor. I thought that the recent appearance of corruption, lack of accounting experience in leadership, and politization of the office was a recipie for disaster. Was it ever.

Since that time, the office has become more politicized and more dysfunctional, as measured by the number of audit reports completed by the office. Through April, audits are down more than 50% over the past two years.

Meanwhile the Auditor's office has been in a distracting, high profile dispute between the legislature and governor. There is also legislation to get the office involved in reviewing government efficiency -- which seems absurd given the efficiency of the office today. The State Auditor has also been vocal about auditing the DMV as a way of improving customer service there -- I don't even know the status of that one.

As I preached in my campaign, when a small organization of professionals like the Office of State Auditor (OSA) is shaken to its core by an ethical issue and the right managers are not there to right the course, the organzation can go into a death spiral. Even with excellent management and the focus of the professionals still at work in the OSA, a turnaround now will be a difficult and protracted effort.

Hopefully we will not need to wait until the next election for this mess to get straightened out.