NEXT, AUD. GEN'S GOING TO CAPTURE BONNIE AND CLYDE

The Auditor General of Illinois is an appointive, constitutional officer. The Office exists to keep the state from wasting money and to detect any unsafe financial practices or diversion. Unfortunately, this one has taken to wasting money himself. Wonder who audits the Auditor?

The AudGen conducts required budgetary audits. These, called "compliance" audits, are the ones that really make sure money is being spent on the proper line items and there are documents to back up every major expenditure. This is very important, vital work.

Over time, the AudGen has crept into another type of audit, much less useful. These are called "performance" audits. These are supposed to measure the effectiveness of programs. They are really just public advocacy @ the taxpayers' expense.

The AudGen released one of these last Wednesday about business and job incentives from the Governor's Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO). Essentially the quarrel with the DCEO reporting was their using projections and counting training opportunities as"jobs created". It is impossible to read his report and see where it saved the State of Illinois any money. In fact whatever it cost for AudGen to do the audit and prepare the report is lost money.

I'm going to raise just two points about so-called performance audits of legislatively approved Deparment programs. First, I thought it was the job of the electorate to rate the job performance of our officials and that we do that every four years. Second, performance audits are only conducted "at the request of legislators". What a concept! We get close to election time and unfriendly legislators ask the AudGen to poke and prod at the Gov's numbers. Out of that we get a real scoop. Elected Officials sometimes overstate their accomplishments! Wow, it took a "performance audit" for us to figure that out.

The Auditor General should not be allowed to engage in wasteful activities any more than the other constitutional officers. Given there was no indication any money was mispent or that any of the funds used were not authorized by the legislature, it is impossible to find any value in this exercise.If the AudGen wants to go into politics and public advocacy, he should see Ralph Nader and sign up as a volunteer. If he wants to oppose the Governor, he should go sign up with Giddy, Obie or Spike (Brady being comprehensively hopeless in all respects). If, however, he wants to save Money for the People of Illinois, he should get back to Audit Trails and Get off the Campaign Trail.