Auditors Office funding could quadruple

If Senate Joint Resolution 9 makes it through the process, voters will be given the opportunity to amend the State Constitution.

The amendment would dedicate 2/10ths of 1 percent of the state's budget to funding the State Auditors Office.

The current state budget is $5.65B.  Depending on the actual budget each year, the SAO would have a little over $11M to spend.  Their current budget is around $2.3 million.

What would State Auditor Hector Balderas do with more funding?

The last time I asked him that very question, link, he said,

for every dollar increase in his budget, he can save three.

For an $11M investment, taxpayers will see about $30M returned.  Where else are our tax dollars being invested so prudently?

Why don't we invest even more?

Why don't we just give Balderas as much as he can use?  Why isn't every agency of oversight not fully funded?

My suppositions are;

• there are politicians and political parties who benefit personally from the lack of oversight over the spending of our enormous power and considerable resources.  And,
• that those pols and parties legislate in their own self-interests.

But then, I'm a cynic.




photo Mark Bralley