Posted on: Friday, January 9, 2004

State auditor seeking $3 million for new duties

Associated Press

State Auditor Marion Higa wants lawmakers to pluck $3 million from the Lingle administration's budget and give it to her office to begin overseeing the routine annual financial audits in all state departments.

Until now, the departments contracted with a private auditing firm to review their financial records while Higa's office, which is attached to the Legislature, primarily handled the often headline-making management audits.

That changed when the Legislature in July overrode Republican Gov. Linda Lingle's veto of a bill assigning responsibility for hiring department financial audits to Higa's office and reimbursing the auditor for the audit costs no longer borne by the department.

The dispute over the veto created a rift between two of the state's most prominent women.

In both her unsuccessful 1998 campaign for governor and her 2002 successful campaign, Lingle often pointed to Higa's audit findings of waste and mismanagement in various departments and programs as evidence of a need for change to a GOP administration.

Higa, who was appointed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 1992 and reappointed in 2000 to her second eight-year term, insisted the law was needed to conform with the state Constitution giving the auditor authority to conduct financial audits of departments "to provide for maximum accountability for expenditure of state resources."

She said the Constitution gives her office the responsibility of certifying the accuracy of the financial statements, yet with the exception of two or three financial audits the Legislature assigns to her office each year, she has no role in the audits.

The change will put Hawai'i in line with the way most other states handle financial audits, Higa said yesterday.

Lingle at the time questioned why lawmakers moved to override her veto, yet didn't override former Democratic Gov. Ben Cayetano's veto of the same bill the previous year, noting the only difference appeared to be their political party. She said it changed a practice that had been in effect since statehood.

The new law authorizes a revolving fund in Higa's office which would be activated with the funds for which she's seeking legislative authorization.

When fully activated, the revolving fund would hold about $6 million, she told House and Senate money committees this week.