Sadly, what Ted Van Dyke reports isn't limited to gutting Brian Sonntag's performance audit efforts. Sleight-of-hand budget tricks are an everyday Olympia occurance with the law or the will of the people or both ignored.

Try to get a Legislator to explain the $9 billion so-called "deficit." You'll hear a lot of gobbledygook, but nothing either understandable or, frankly, truthful. Ask about revenue projections for the next biennium. Ask whether they're close to what the state took in during the current biennium. Ask about rates of increase in spending. Ask how many of the so-called "tough" cuts are but cuts in projected INCREASES in spending.

While you're at it, ask about the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul shifting of funds from designated accounts to cover alleged shortfalls in others. Ask the governor why she refused to follow the law requiring her to cut spending when certain benchmark triggers are reached. Ask how the Legislature can justify factoring in one-time federal funds without acknowledging the need to come up with a replacement for them (that would be from you, the taxpayer) when they write the following biennium's budget.

Ask why Auditor Sonntag's performance audit results are routinely ignored by the Legislature and the audited agencies. For example, the audit of Washington State Ferries, which identified nearly $10 million in annual real-dollar savings opportunities, has pretty much been trash-canned because it would have required addressing systemically wasteful labor relations practices. How about a new motto for WSF: "No spine none of the time..."

And we keep electing these people? Who now are floating an income tax proposal?

Is there no tar? Are there no feathers?

The Piper

I second the comment above.
Until we have a Rico Act to apply to politicians, political parties, and unctuous media supplicants, we will continue the slide forward, into the past .... the day may come when we discover the depths of WA. corruption and waste, by watching a reality show; "Extreme Patronage".
Washington State is a political third world nation.

This is very disappointing. Abdicating strong and effective government oversight is absolutely the wrong way to go about creating savings in a challening economy. If anything we should be increasing the amount of performance auditing -- and thinking creatively about the most cost-effective way to provide services.

Gutting this program is really a vote for preserving the status quo - just with fewer services and staff to provide those services. That's not the creative thinking that we need right now.

All government employees who engage in financial malfeasance regarding the public's monies should be removed from employment, elected or otherwise effective the date of the violation.

Monies paid after this date shall be recovered in full from pensions and personal assets. This does not limit additional civil or criminal action, as necessary, nor the actions of individual victims of such abuses.

This is simply legalized corruption. These politicians in power (state senators, state reps, the governor) want to have the ability to do what they want, in the manner they want, when they want, without accountability from voters. To do so, they must obscure the truth from, or outright lie to, the voters.

Mr. Sontag is one of the few state politicians with the means and will to hold these corrupt politicians accountable, at least in part. (I would argue that Atty Gen Rob McKenna is another.) He is a threat to these corrupt politicians, so they will do anything in their power to make him ineffective.

This proposal is horrible, but not surprising, behavior by the state senate, the state house and the governor.

Brian Sonntag is the number one defender of the taxpayer in state government. Unfortunately, that also makes him the number one Enemy of the State. Off to the gulag, Comrade Question-Asker!

The state has to re-establish funding priorities, starting with a zero-based budgeting strategy. Meaning, start from scratch. The more departments get performance audits by Sonntag's office, the easier this process will be. The whole rationale for performance audits was to see what programs are delivering value, and which are delivering far less value. Lean times are exactly when you need more data to make hard choices.

The only democrat I (have ever?)vote for consistently.
Clearly points out the BS that is SOP at state guv.

How about Brian Sonntag for Mayor!!! If elected, he would end Seattle's "Move along folks, there's nothing to see here" culture.