Republicans are not properly funding state agencies, creating perfect environment for financial crimes
The legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee decided to postpone its investigations into recently alleged financial crimes by a state employee until after a trial that is set for December.
In July, the chair put off that discussion by promising his fellow members they would have a meeting in October to ask their tough questions. The July promise of an October hearing has served its delaying purpose. Now this postponement will handily get them past the November elections as well.
A decently funded Department of Legislative Audit may have been able to do the type of internal control procedures that would have found the weaknesses that Lonna Carroll is alleged to have abused. A decently funded DLA may have had the reputation in Pierre to discourage a state employee struggling to survive the low pay and abuse from customers and legislators from being tempted to abuse the trust placed in them.
But we’ll never know, because our DLA is not decently funded and our Government Operations and Audit Committee is controlled by the GOP machine that values self-preservation over the people’s right to know.
Legislative leadership has known for nearly 15 years, that I am personally aware of, that in the name of the almighty so-called “balanced budget,” the Department of Legislative Audit has been staffed at bare-bones levels insufficient to do any meaningful looking under rocks, kicking the tires, or internal control auditing beyond what is required by the feds. Repeatedly in that time, (see 2025 budget request documents for DLA here):
DLA has asked for additional staff and/or more competitive salary packages, but has been refused time after time.
Only when late state financial reports were recognized as a stumbling block to a higher bond rating were DLA and BFM granted the personnel needed to get them done in a timely fashion, but they left unaddressed the gaping hole in oversight that a “lean” DLA could not address.
COVID and ARPA funding have multiplied the federal program auditing burden of DLA, which leaves even less time for regular program review. Even in these times of budgetary plenty, as federal largesse saves South Dakota’s budget hide year after year, this last winter the governor refused to fully fund 4 positions that DLA requested.
According to this year's DLA budget request:
“Over the last four and a half fiscal years (FY 2020-FY 2024) and through Dec. 31, 2023, DLA had a net of 12 auditors leave Legislative Audit. Three were retirements; however, seven were lost to the private sector for more than their annual compensation at Legislative Audit and five were lost to other state and local agencies.”
That was a loss of nearly half of their trained auditors. How’d you like to run a highly specialized professional office with that kind of turnover?
The fault for the recently discovered financial crimes lies squarely upon the shoulders of the governors and Legislatures of the last 40 years. Like many other areas of our state budget, they are being penny-wise and pound-foolish with the human and natural resources of this great state.
Susan Wismer of Britton is a former state senator who served 10 years in the South Dakota Legislature. She was a member of either the Appropriations Committee or the Government Operations and Audit Committee for her entire tenure. Wismer is a certified public accountant. She and her sister Becky Weber have operated Britton Bookkeeping & Tax Service for 40 years.
