Accountability Costs

Citizens demand accountability of their government. They want assurances that their tax dollars are spent wisely. Unfortunately accountability costs. A lot of what we address in audits is making government more accountable. Here is an auditor in San Diego who tells his Council how much it will cost to complete an audit.

It is fairly common that when a government plans to place a fundraising initiative before its electorate it includes in the package a promise to audit or have oversight. Why? Because polling shows that when this is included, the likelihood of the measure passing increases.

A few years ago Multnomah County and the City of Portland leaders were contemplating a measure to raise support for area school districts. As we observed the deliberations on the side, the City Auditor and I, then the County Auditor, intervened. We proposed that a small portion of the revenues be directed towards funding two auditors for schools. The tax passed and auditors were funded. For three years audits were completed about schools.

In preparing this post, I attempted to find links that used to be available to point the reader to these audits. Unfortunately, the audits, and any discussion of them, seem to have disappeared. This was a valiant effort, but I'm not sure how successful it was. One positive outcome was that performance auditing became institutionalized at Portland Public Schools. Reflecting on what happened, I don't think I would propose something similar in the future. Auditing needs to be integral to the government it is auditing. An auditor that specifically has jurisdiction over its particular government can speak directly to its leadership and also have the advantage of thoroughly understanding its dynamics.

One of the things that I consider when I prepare our annual audit schedule is cost. Audits are expensive. I estimate they take between six to eight months to complete. One of the benefits of an audit is that we have time to thoroughly review a service or operation. But that is expensive. So I try to schedule audits that are worth the cost and audit areas that management does not have the time to review or that represent a risk to the government's operations.