This morning Legislative Audit Commission - Evaluation Subcommittee met and selected five topics:
The Legislative Audit Commission met on March 28, 2022, and selected the following topics for evaluation (click on the links for background information):
It's worth taking a look at the pdfs of background information about each topic.
We'll post the YouTube of Monday's discussion when it appears on the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor's channel.
Why is this important? Early this month, Minnesota Public Radio's Brian Bakst reported in Audit fever hits Minnesota lawmakers:
The Minnesota House plans to vote Thursday on a bill requiring a special audit of the over budget Southwest light rail line, just one of several intensive reviews lawmakers are seeking this year from the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
The pace of requests for audits has raised concern over the ability of auditors to keep up. There’s also worry that the end products are as much campaign fodder as they are policymaking.
From nutrition aid to rental assistance to the light rail project, the urgent requests for deep dives into programs are piling up. Nearly four dozen audit ideas have been put forward by lawmakers, with more coming from advocacy groups and citizens.
Those have landed on the desk of new Legislative Auditor Judy Randall.
“I have received direct letters. I have read about things in a press release. And I have had bills that have directed us to do work,” Randall said recently as she discussed the rising workload for her staff of about 50 evaluators and accountants.
Her comments were made before the Legislative Audit Commission, a bicameral panel that usually directs the Office of the Legislative Auditor on what to focus on. There’s typically about 10 topics per year.
Some evaluation subjects still in the running this year: a review of Office of Justice Program grants; a dissection of COVID-19 death certificates and official counts; and the Minnesota Department of Education’s handling of grants, including to the under investigation Feeding Our Future organization. A final list of audits should be decided later this month. . . .
That said, the Legislature is on course this year to dictate special audits or at least strongly push reviewers toward certain topics.
The Southwest project examination is chief among them. A bill staged for a House vote contains a 17-point audit checklist around the multibillion-dollar rail project now years behind schedule and way over initial cost estimates. Senators have advanced a similar bill. . . .
Senate Housing Chair Rich Draheim, R-Madison Lake, said the RentHelpMN program should be gone over to determine if more than $500 million was properly dispersed. . . .
Read the entire Bakst piece at MPR.
Photo: Legislative Auditor Judy Randall. Courtesy of the Office of Legislative Auditor.
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