Bump seeks power to combat foot-dragging bureaucrats

BOSTON -- Auditor Suzanne Bump had three words to describe the effects two bills she spoke in support of at a legislative hearing would have: "modern, effective and accountable."

The auditor on Monday pitched the Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight on two bills (H 5 and H 6) she filed seeking to "modernize state government to make it more efficient and accountable."

The more substantive bill (H 6) would require auditees to provide requested information within ten business days, allow the auditor to focus the office's inspections on agencies that have a higher risk of waste, fraud and abuse, and make the enabling statute for the auditor's office gender neutral.

"The work of my office is often slowed by bureaucratic feet-dragging when we request information from auditees. These delays sometimes stretch for months. Under this legislation, auditees will have 10 business days to respond to requests for information from my office," Bump said. "You'll note this is the same standard that the Legislature set for agency response to public records requests."

The bill would also clarify that agencies must provide information to the auditor's office in its native format, meaning that it is "not specifically compiled for our access," Bump said, and "allows us to go right into the systems to make sure we are looking at source material."

Bump's office would be allowed to move toward what the auditor called "a risk-based approach to auditing" in which her office would focus its time and effort on agencies and departments with larger or more complicated budgets while still requiring that every state agency be audited at least once every five years.

"This bill recognizes that the risks to taxpayers posed by small entities with limited budgets are not as significant as those posed by vast agencies with expansive missions and large budgets," she said.

The auditor's office would be allowed to require that the agencies they audit develop corrective action plans and submit periodic reports to the auditor, governor and Legislature detailing how the agency is addressing any issues raised in the audit. Bump said her office now asks agencies to report back after an audit but has no authority to compel the agency to respond.

The other bill Bump spoke in favor of (H 5) would update the process that government agencies must follow when reporting lost, stolen, or damaged state property or funds. It would give the state comptroller and auditor the ability to jointly establish a new threshold for losses or damages that must be reported to the auditor.

"Currently, state agencies and departments have to report to my office when funds or property goes missing or is damaged. That means that if there is a variance in a cash drawer in a registry of deeds office by even $1, a report needs to be generated. If, literally, a ceiling tile falls down, it has to be reported," Bump said. "Frankly, it's a waste of time and effort for the reporting agency and for us to record it and then look into what risk mitigation activity was failed to be performed in order for the result to occur."

Bump said that the new regulations would extend to independent authorities like the MBTA, regional transit authorities and housing authorities. She said the bill -- which she described to the committee as "one of the most straightforward proposals you're going to see in this legislative session" -- was given favorable reports last session by the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight Committee as well as the House Ways and Means Committee.