Auditable Offenses: Part 2

More than a few readers agreed with our first “Auditable Offenses” assessment of State Auditor Brian Sonntag. Enough of them wrote in that a sequel was warranted.

Sonntag still lacks an opponent as he runs for his fifth term as State Auditor – but that doesn’t mean you should vote for him. Given his record, there ought to be an audit of his office. Maybe Tim Eyman will pay for it – he can take out at least two mortgages before the creditors come calling.

Thos performance audits that were instigated at Eyman’s command and that have garnered so much public praise for Sonntag were outsourced to private auditors for $3.4 million. Only they ended up costing over $4 million and one of them showed up nearly a year overdue.

One of the contractors hired by Sonntag, a Democrat, has written transportation tomes for the right-wing Heritage Foundation – and the Heritage Foundation’s transportation arguments look suspiciously similar to Sonntag’s transportation audit.

Besides paying too much for contractors and short-cuts (Sonntag spent over a million to find out that the ferry system wouldn’t cost as much if the ferries didn’t run as much), the State Auditor’s Office has been consistently late in providing audits to the agencies being audited. Often agencies are given up to six dates spanning as many weeks, lending the impression that Sonntag has no idea when his audits will be finished, let alone what they might say.

If there is an opponent out there, we would like to give Sonntag a date certain for his audit: November 4, 2008.

UPDATE:

Chris Mulick reports that the Constitution Party's Glenn Freeman of Kent has filed against Sonntag for Auditor.