Welcome Beth Wood, Candidate for State Auditor

I have had the chance to get to know Beth over the last few months and she will be fantastic as our new state auditor.
She would do a good job at any post she would serve. This state will be lucky to have someone like her in a position of resposiblity.

Mommoaizo,
Thanks so much for your question.

The State Auditor is in charge of auditing the following:
State Agencies
Universities and UNC Hospital
Community Colleges (rotatiion basis, once every 3 years unless we found problems when they were audited)
Clerks of Court (rotation, once every 3 years unless we found problems)
82 not-for-profits (annually)
12 Component Units of NC like the Ports Authority in Wilmington, the Battleship in Wilmington, Global Transpark in Kinston etc.

FYI we perform different types of audits:
Financial Statement Audits
Audits of federal grant moneys
Fiscal Control Audits
Performance Audits
And when there is a complaint of fraud, abuse or waste we perform Investigations.

I tell you that to answer your next question. The financial statement audits are done as State/Federal mandates.

The Performance audits are done based on requests from the General Assembly, or at the request of an agency head or based on the State Auditor and their staff's assessment of where these need to be performed.

Information Technology audits are based on the discretion of the State Auditor; however, the IT staff are used as a part of the financial audits.

The fraud investigations are performed as allegations come in from the public.

The State Auditor's Office audits in compliance with Auditing Standards handed down by a federal agency as well as by the American Institute of CPAs.

As to your last question, I can look at everything the predecessor auditor has done while he was in office. I know well the staff who has worked for him below the senior management level. I am comfortable I will not find anything there. We will see about the other.

Information Technology Audits

two or three are gathered ...

;)

Ms. Wood, I've wondered in the past if the state auditor's office is the proper vehicle for auditing and instigating some change/"leaning" of DOT. With our current auditor I can't say I'd like the idea -- political goals would muddy the water too much. But with a true public servant such as yourself overseeing the office of State Auditor I think it might not be such a bad idea. The one word I've heard used to describe DOT by folks who deal with the agency professionally is "silos." I have no desire to see government run like a business but sometimes a little modernization within certain institutions is a good thing. Do you have any thoughts or comments on that? Has an audit of DOT been done in recent years? If so, what were the results? Is there a reason I'm not aware of that an audit of this agency is not a good idea?

No I don't think enough has been done in the way of Performance Audits.

They are a most important tool for measuring how effective an agency or division or process of an agency really are. It is a valuable tool for helping agencies and their staff understanding where they might be inefficient or where they may be wasteful.

With Performanc audits we can provide agencies with information as to how they are performing based on established benchmarks. Show them how they can improve.

I see them playing an important role in the future to make agencies more streamlined in providing services. I can see that Division of the Auditor's office doubling in size.

Sometimes experience helps a person understand what doesn't work, as well as what does. Can you tell us where you think the current Auditor has fallen short?

Betty,

I was the Director of Training, I trained audit staff in every Division of the Office. (You never know a topic any better than when you have to teach it.)

I implemented a training program that better suited the job setting of our staff, it incorporated more of a hands-on training method vs just lecture.

I was responsible for training newly promoted supervisors how to evaluate and problem solve with their staff.

I initiated a new staff performance evaluation program that was more in line with the true performance of our staff and help those who were having trouble.

I spoke before the appropriations committe during budget setting time.

This experience not only prepares me technically to lead this office but gives me an insight into the strengths and weaknesses in the Auditor's Office as well as our own State goverment.

The training of his staff. Governmental accounting is a unique area and you must understand that to understand how to audit governmental entities. Governmental Audit and accounting are not areas that the universities and colleges give much preparation to the student for. So when we hire staff the Auditor's Office has to train the staff to perform the audits of state agencies, universities, community colleges etc.

What the Auditor's Office does is complex. There are some very talented people working there, but the staff turnover has been tremendous. The new staff coming in are not getting effective training and we send them out on an audit unprepared.

The State Auditors as well as the contract auditors are required to have 80 hours of formal continuing education over a 2-year period. Now that requirement is meant for the training to be relevant to whatever it is the auditors do, i.e., if they are auditing non profits then they should be getting training on either auditing courses or non-profit accounting.

In the Auditor's Office we made sure the training was relevant to what the auditor did. I can't speak to the contract auditors.

You are right in that it does look like our job is about hindsight. Actually, our audits do provide proactive information; however, it seems that no one sees that. The Auditor's Office is required to report errors, omissions, fraud, etc. that may have occurred during the period under audit; however, auditing standards require that the reports also disclose weaknesses that could result, at a later date, in omissions, fraud, errors, waste etc. It just seems that everyone concentrates on whether or not anything occurred in the period under audit and are not looking at those weaknesses that need to be addressed to prevent future problems.

I want to work more closely with the General Assembly to point out these weaknesses that need to be addressed and the consequences of not addressing them so they might hold state agencies accountable for fixing any problems we might find.

The findings in an audit report are no good if the General Assembly does not hold State agencies accountable for the findings. So I want to be more proactive in seeing that this information gets to those who can do something about it.

:(

Thanks everyone for making this live-blog happen.

- - - - -

That's a hard one to answer because you know, it comes down to personal integrity. The Auditor's office should be nonpartisan and should not be pushing any political agendas. Because it is an elected position the only way to end this is to put someone else in to the office......which is what we are getting ready to do.