Gregoire signs accountability measures

OLYMPIA – Washington taxpayers will spend more than $30 billion on the state’s operating, construction and highway budgets for the next two years.

Agencies have more than 100,000 employees ready to provide everything from schools and roads to health care and environmental programs. So who tracks how effectively those dollars are actually spent?

Gov. Christine Gregoire on Wednesday signed a package of bills aimed at answering that question:

“ Performance audits are authorized for the first time. Long a goal of watchdogs, this new law gives the state auditor and an oversight board the power to study agencies and programs to see if the tax dollars are effectively achieving the desired goals. Until now, the auditor could only look at whether finances were properly spent and accounted for.

“ Washington becomes the first state to adopt a government accountability program pioneered by New York City, Baltimore and Seattle.

The New York City Police Department began using computers to track clusters of crime by geographic area and then deployed officers to solve that particular crime problem. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani extended the same approach to all of city government, measuring effectiveness and results. Baltimore and Seattle later adapted it, as did the Washington State Patrol and selected state agencies.

Gregoire requested, and secured, legislation to create GMAP – the acronym for Government Management Accountability and Performance system. This will require every department to set up a system to measure the effectiveness of how services are delivered and whether intended results are actually achieved.

Early projects include State Patrol tracking of fatal accidents, Department of Licensing checking on wait time for license renewals, and tracking response times for reports of child abuse.

“ Washington’s acclaimed budgeting system, called Priorities of Government, is adopted in state law as a new requirement. Under the administration of Gov. Gary Locke, the state became the first to create a system of ranking all state programs and services, from the essential down to the merely nice to have. Budget writers then lop off the lowest priority items when they run out of money.

Gregoire, who intends to make government accountability one of her signature issues, said the three measures have a common theme of holding agencies accountable and making sure the tax dollar is effectively used.

“We put a lot of money in place to create jobs, to ensure we have quality education, to have quality, affordable and accessible health care, to improve the quality of life and the environment, and to make sure our roads are safe,” she told a signing ceremony.

“Now it’s time to make sure all that happens. … It’s time to give a return on investment, in no uncertain terms. It’s not just a promise, it’s not just words, it’s not just money, it’s about results.”

State Auditor Brian Sonntag, state Rep. Mark Miloscia, D-Federal Way, and Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, all longtime advocates of performance audits, said the broader, more rigorous audits will squeeze more productivity out of each dollar and lead to continuous improvement.

The auditor will work with a citizen oversight board to develop the auditing schedule. The actual performance audits will be contracted out to the private sector.

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, and representatives of business groups joined a bipartisan group of legislators at the signing ceremony.

But there was criticism from some quarters. Initiative sponsor Tim Eyman, who is collecting signatures for a broader performance audit measure, called the new state legislation “a milquetoast alternative to Initiative 900. It’s a weak, cheap knockoff of Initiative 900.”

Eyman said Gregoire and lawmakers “recognized the inevitability of this reform and decided to jump on the accountability bandwagon. But it’s all symbolism and no substance.”

The state legislation doesn’t include local government and doesn’t give the state auditor independence to do the performance audits himself, Eyman said. Both features are in the plan he hopes to qualify for the November ballot.

The performance audit bill is HB1064. The GMAP measure is HB1970. The Priorities of Government bill is HB1242. Copies of bills, staff analysis and roll calls are available through the Legislature’s home page on the Internet.