Posted on: Tuesday, July 22, 2003

EDITORIAL
City auditor must have complete independence

New city Auditor Les Tanaka has barely set up shop but is already feeling the push and tug of competing interests trying to decide how he should do his job.

If Tanaka is not given substantial independence and autonomy, the promise of this new position will be lost.

In this regard, it might be instructive to look at the performance of state Auditor Marion Higa, who ramped up both the quantity and quality of her work when her office became independent of the Legislature.

Originally, Higa's operation was known as the legislative auditor's office. She is now the state auditor, free to review any and all government operations.

At City Hall, some council members appear to have taken the position that the auditor works for them — a tool to better understand the operations and activities of the executive branch.

And surely, that will be a major component of his job. The underlying purpose of an auditor is to increase efficiency and performance of city programs. By definition, most of those are under the control of the executive.

But his credibility would be damaged if his office were seen to be an arm of the council, which has more than its share of disagreements and conflicts with the executive.

Former Councilman Jon Yoshimura had it right when he told Advertiser staff writer Treena Shapiro that while it is important that the council suggest or recommend areas for review by the auditor, it should not conclude it has the power to order such audits.

Even if the proposal had merit — and surely most of them would — the fact that the auditor was doing his work at the council's bidding rather than independently would only damage the credibility of results.