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Republican Lawmakers Display “Staggering Ignorance” of Legislative Audit Bureau

Posted by Bob Kiefert, Green Bay Progressive
Bob Kiefert, Green Bay Progressive
Bob Kiefert is the Publisher of the Northeast Wisconsin - Green Bay Progressive.
User is currently offline
on Tuesday, 09 June 2015
in Wisconsin

david-craigThe Craig/Jarchow bill transfers all legislative oversight of the executive branch and the fraud, waste and abuse hotline to two partisan leaders. Why would legislators want do away with the LAB? There are so many examples of how the exemplary and award-winning work of the Legislative Audit Bureau saved taxpayer dollars.


adam-jarchowMADISON - Republican Representatives David Craig (R-Big Bend) and Adam Jarchow (R-Balsam Lake) have authored a bill to entirely eliminate the Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) and the legislature’s Joint Committee on Audit as well.

Under the proposal, the independent audit bureau would be replaced by inspectors general who would provide auditing services to all state agencies with more than 100 employees. The inspectors general work under each department head, but are directed to audit their agencies and/or programs by the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Majority Leader. Both are Republicans.

The LAB has had a long history of independent audits of the Executive Branch. Governors of both parties have wished it would go away, fearing reviews they could not control.

The timing of this bill is especially curious coming on the heels of the extremely critical audit of the Walker Administration's WEDC, which has been rife with mismanagement and perceived cronyism.

Senator Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma), a frequent spokeswoman for progressive values on these pages and ranking minority member of the Joint Committee on Audit, harshly criticized the bill this morning.

kathleen-vinehout“The breadth of the Representatives’ ignorance of the LAB activities and processes is staggering,” Vinehout said. “Their bill shows a complete unfamiliarity with the skills of auditors, the efficiencies in government that LAB staff helped create and the fraud, waste and abuse that auditors discovered and further prevented through their oversight.”

“The Craig/Jarchow bill transfers all legislative oversight of the executive branch and the fraud, waste and abuse hotline to two partisan leaders,” Vinehout said. “Their bill embeds auditors in the agencies making them ripe for corruption by executive staff and partisan leaders.”

Recent audits of economic development programs and Medicaid transportation provided lawmakers with critical and budget timely information. Last year’s audit of the Supervised Release program showed that the Department of Health Services was spending more for inmate transportation than the Department of Corrections.

“Legislative actions should be based on accurate information,” concludes Vinehout. “There are so many examples of how the exemplary and award-winning work of the Legislative Audit Bureau saved taxpayer dollars. All I can ask is why would legislators want do away with the LAB?”

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GOP Plan to Kill State's Non-Partisan Watchdog Bureau An Overreach of Power

Posted by Bob Kiefert, Green Bay Progressive
Bob Kiefert, Green Bay Progressive
Bob Kiefert is the Publisher of the Northeast Wisconsin - Green Bay Progressive.
User is currently offline
on Monday, 08 June 2015
in Wisconsin

scott-walkerTiming is especially curious coming on the heels of the extremely critical audit of the Walker Administration's WEDC, which has been rife with mismanagement and perceived cronyism. "Having an employee audit their boss is essentially a joke," said one veteran agency manager.


MADISON - Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin on Monday were circulating a bill that would eliminate the state's independent Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB).

GOP sponsors of the bill said the state would be better served by auditors working within state agencies.

Under the proposal being circulated among GOP lawmakers, the independent audit bureau would be replaced by inspectors general who would provide auditing services to all state agencies with more than 100 employees, according to analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Since its creation in 1966, the LAB has had a long history of independent audits of the Executive Branch. Governors of both parties have wished it would go away, fearing reviews they could not control. But none before Gov. Scott Walker has seriously attempted to kill it.

The existing audit bureau is a free-standing watchdog office that operates independently of the agencies it reviews. The bureau audits the practices of state agencies in addition to their books under the oversight of a bipartisan Legislative committee.

Having internal "inspectors" who report to individual department heads would essentially mute any effective audit function within state agencies, according to one 33 year veteran agency manager. "Having an employee audit their boss is essentially a joke", said our source. "Anyone really trying to be independent would quickly find themselves looking for work. That's why the audit function must be beyond the reach of the executive."

peter_barcaAssembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) agrees. In a statement issued Monday, Barca said of Rep. Dave Craig’s proposal to eliminate the Legislative Audit Bureau:

“In a session filled with bad ideas, this is one of the worst in terms of adversely affecting the taxpayers' long-term interest.

“One of the greatest strengths of the Wisconsin Legislature is having nonpartisan service agencies like the Audit Bureau, Fiscal Bureau and Reference Bureau. Through these agencies, citizens can be assured they are getting the pure facts and that the information released is not being clouded by partisan judgment or political spin.

“Changing the nonpartisan, award-winning Legislative Audit Bureau into partisan appointees continues the Republican efforts to reduce oversight of state government. The move would allow for more partisan and special-interest influence and further erode Wisconsin’s tradition of clean, open and transparent government.

“The timing is especially curious coming on the heels of the extremely critical audit of the Walker Administration's WEDC, which has been rife with mismanagement and perceived cronyism. Taxpayers deserve more oversight and accountability, not less.”

***

During his time in the legislature, Rep. Barca has twice co-chaired the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

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Republicans Kicking LAB Oversight of UW Out the Window

Posted by Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout, State Senator 31st District
Kathleen Vinehout of Alma is an educator, business woman, and farmer who is now
User is currently offline
on Monday, 08 June 2015
in Wisconsin

uw-system_campusesSen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about action by the Legislature’s majority party to eliminate the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) annual financial audit of the UW System. The action is a recipe for corruption and is akin to eliminating the watchdog over the taxpayers’ money.


MADISON - “Suspend current law…requiring the Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct an annual financial audit of the UW System. Instead, require the UW System to contract with an independent accounting firm,” read the motion introduced by Senator Harsdorf and Representative Schraa.

Recent action by a majority of the state’s budget writing committee not only kicked the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) out of the UW System but also approved a process to get rid of state purchasing laws at the UW and waive the state’s bidding process for some UW building projects.

The motion effectively throws Wisconsin taxpayer controls out the window for a significant portion of the state budget. The UW System 2-year budget is over $11 billion – about a 7th of the entire state budget.

To justify suspending the LAB’s annual UW audit, the Harsdorf/Schraa motion required UW officials to contract with a private accounting firm.

This action kicked out the watchdog and replaced it with a goldfish.

Private accounting firms count things. They can tell us money was spent and the books were balanced. But their reports won’t tell us about how the money was spent and whether or not the spending was in students’ and taxpayers’ best interest.

Since its creation in 1966, financial audits are a primary responsibility of the Legislative Audit Bureau. In the past two years, the LAB completed 26 financial audits – including the audit opinion of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) of state operations.

In a recent letter to the Co-Chairs of the Legislative Audit Committee, State Auditor Joe Chrisman explained: “In conducting financial audits, LAB follows professional auditing standards issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as generally accepted government auditing standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States.”

The LAB financial auditors adhere to the same standards as private firms. They are required to be independent and sharpen their skills and knowledge through continuing education. Every three years the National State Auditors Association subjects the LAB to peer review. State law prohibits any meddling or outside influence with audit investigations and protects whistleblowers with strong confidentiality rules.

The LAB has extensive experience auditing the over $6 billion annual UW System budget.

Over the last 8 years or so the LAB reported on the following: how the UW allocates state tax money and tuition to campuses; the process followed to assess the financial reporting of entities like the UW Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF); overpayments for retirement contributions and health insurance (some of the health insurance contributions were for employees no longer with the UW); audit differences including financial reporting errors by the UW System; changes in financial activities of the UW including an increase in unrestricted net assets; and internal controls.

The UW does not hire the LAB. Auditors answer to the State Auditor who answers to the Legislature, who answers to the people. No private firm involved.

The LAB answers questions my colleagues, taxpayers and I most often ask: What’s going on? How is it working? Can we do things better?

Kick out the LAB? Doing away with state procurement policies on contracting and hiring private firms? Doing away with some bidding rules? Contracting with a private auditing firm who knows nothing about the complex accounting and operations of the UW?

When I reviewed the Harsdorf/Schraa motion, I was left with a serious question: Why?

Recently Representatives Craig (R-Waukesha) and Jarchow (R-Balsam Lake) drafted a bill to entirely eliminate the Legislative Audit Bureau and the Legislative Audit Committee. They want to create an Inspector General for each state agency over 100 employees. They transfer all legislative oversight of the executive branch and the fraud, waste and abuse hotline to two partisan leaders. Their bill imbeds auditors in the agencies making them ripe for corruption by executive staff and partisan leaders.

The breadth of the Representatives’ ignorance of LAB activities and processes is staggering. Their bill shows a complete unfamiliarity with the skills of auditors, the efficiencies in government LAB staff helped created and the fraud, waste and abuse auditors discovered and further prevented through their oversight. All I can ask is why would legislators want do away with the LAB?

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The Bucks: "Cheaper to Keep Them, Indeed"

Posted by Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe is the founder and president of Blue Jean Nation and author of Blue
User is currently offline
on Friday, 05 June 2015
in Wisconsin

milwaukee_bucksMILWAUKEE - Boy, the Milwaukee Bucks must really be feeling the love.

Bucks owners Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens think of their club and their dream of a gleaming new palace for the franchise as a “transformative economic and cultural asset” for Milwaukee and all of Wisconsin. But when Governor Scott Walker and top legislative leaders announced yesterday that they intend to put taxpayers on the hook for half of the cost of a new arena, they stood behind a sign reading “Cheaper To Keep Them.”

Now there’s a marketing slogan. The Milwaukee Bucks: Less of a burden if they stay.

Walker and his allies insist that taxpayers will be better off footing the bill for $250 million of the cost of building a new arena because they claim the Bucks pulling up stakes and moving to another city would cost Wisconsin even more in lost tax revenue. They pluck a number – $419 million over 20 years – out of thin air to justify their claim.

Of course, the very same kind of argument could be made against other budget decisions the governor and legislative Republicans are making. Applying the logic used to defend a taxpayer subsidy for billionaire owners and millionaire basketball players, it would undeniably be cheaper over the long haul to keep the University of Wisconsin System fully funded. The UW System is a proven economic engine that not only employs large numbers of taxpaying faculty and support staff but also spawns countless start-up companies that end up being big revenue producers as well. But the UW is in line for a $250 million budget cut, exactly the same amount the Bucks are in line to receive.

It also would be cheaper in the end to keep state parks as they are instead of eliminating all state funding for them as the governor and legislative budget writers aim to do. The parks are fuel for the tourism industry, another proven economic engine.

There is a virtually endless list of things in the state budget that are being cut sharply or eliminated altogether but would be cheaper to keep. Funny how this calculus is only used to justify feeding billionaires.

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Mistaking Leadership

Posted by Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe, Blue Jean Nation
Mike McCabe is the founder and president of Blue Jean Nation and author of Blue
User is currently offline
on Friday, 05 June 2015
in Wisconsin

millennialsMADISON - I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how young people want nothing to do with politics and are running away from civic life.

So Millennials don’t want to be politicians. Has anyone stopped to think maybe they want to be leaders instead?

By force of habit, we refer to elected officials as our nation’s leaders, our state’s leaders and our community’s leaders. But based on what I’ve seen over the course of my life, I can’t think of a class of people generally less involved with leadership than politicians.

True leaders give credit and take blame. Politicians almost always do the exact opposite.

Leaders don’t need handlers. Politicians rarely move a muscle without consulting their consultants. They have pollsters who tell them what to think, and speech writers who tell them what to say, and donors and lobbyists who tell them what to do. That is a lot of things, but it is not leadership.

Politicians are exceptionally practiced at knowing which way a parade is heading and running to the front and grabbing a drum. Leaders don’t look for parades.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more important to your average elected official than winning the next election. Doing the right thing doesn’t even come in a distant second. I am not sure what you call that, but it is not leading.

My observation over the years and especially in recent days is that there is indeed something more important than winning elections to those who call themselves party “leaders.” When forced to choose between losing elections and losing control, party bosses will sacrifice electoral success every time. They can live with losing members, they can explain away defeats at the polls. They cannot bear surrendering control. I don’t know exactly what kind of ship that is, but it is not leadership.

Millennials get badmouthed a lot by older folks. Teens and twenty-somethings are too dependent on technology. They don’t know the true meaning of hard work. They don’t this and they don’t that. There are a great many explanations for the bad rap, I suppose. But I think a big one is that those with more gray on the roof are much more likely to confuse behaviors commonly observed in the political arena with leadership.

I may be in a small minority, but I am bullish on the Millennials. I think they will turn out to be a transformational generation. One reason I have for this faith in them is their profound distaste for all those common political behaviors, which means they have a fighting chance to maximize their capacity for genuine leadership.

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