The Stranger endorses NO on I-900

An excerpt from their editorial:

A bill passed by the legislature last year already expanded the capabilities of the auditor's office to do performance audits of state agencies under the oversight of an appointed Citizen's Advisory Panel—which (unlike Eyman's version) would prevent the newly empowered auditor from being an unaccountable politicized attack dog. And that brings us to the problem with I-900.

Eyman also wants to give the state auditor the authority to eyeball local agencies outside the auspices of the Advisory Panel. As tipsy as we are right now, we almost missed the fine print that reveals Eyman's agenda about local agencies: Eyman's initiative tells the newly empowered auditor to: "aggressively pursue the largest, costliest government entities first..." (i.e., those liberal King County and Seattle agencies).

No thanks, Tim. Both King County and the City of Seattle already have tenacious, independent auditors. We don't need to turn a state office into an action wing of the Republican Party's agenda to shrink government. Vote no on I-900.

Municipal League Opposes Initiative 900

Here's their rationale:

Performance audits can be valuable as a management and accountability tool to enhance governmental efficiency. They should be used judiciously by independent, non political auditors to effect improvements in individual agencies and programs. The performance audit legislation ESHB 1064 already passed by the Legislature in 2005 provides such a mechanism and funds it appropriately. It provides for citizen input and oversight, selective audits based on criteria and a work plan, and conformance to governmental audit standards.

Initiative 900, in contrast, uses performance audits to wage a political debate by other means. It throws an excessive amount of money at an overly broad set of audit mandates. It is far from clear that the benefit of blanket state and local government audits will exceed the very high cost of conducting and responding to many audits each year. The questions that the initiative requires the auditors to answer in each performance audit are far from neutral and assume that waste and misfeasance must be present in each audited agency. It grants the state auditor a dedicated funding source and broad auditing powers over all of state and local government without any checks or balances such as citizen oversight or legislative review and appropriation, thus creating opportunity for political mischief.

For these reasons, the Municipal League opposes I-900.

We agree. Vote NO on Initative 900.