If it wasn’t already embarrassed, the Indiana Statehouse should be now, considering the results of an audit of the state’s bookkeeping system.
Hoosiers had 526 million reasons to doubt how clean state government’s books were. Two major errors made for $526 million in found money for the state within a year’s time. The first was in $320 million in misplaced corporate tax collections; the second was $206 million the state had mistakenly tucked away but actually owed counties.
Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration has been back pedaling and soft selling ever since.
Last week, independent auditors called in by Daniels a year ago didn’t find significant, additional errors – if problems with 55,000 taxpayer accounts and 2,880 tax refund requests that were never processed aren’t considered significant errors. (Those were called minuscule compared to a half-billion dollars in two cases.)
But the international firm Deloitte did find a system it deemed geared for haste instead of accuracy.
“As indicated in the risk assessment, the (revenue department) seemed much more focused on efficiency of tax processing than they were on ensuring a strong system of control and accountability over taxpayer funds,” according to the report.
State officials chalked up the changes that were in the works as “cultural shifts” and that accuracy would be the focus from now on.
Good to know.
The past administration concentrated on working at the speed of business. Sounds as if that culture spread down to those in charge of overseeing the books. Gov.-elect Mike Pence will need to keep an eye on that.
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012312260004
