A bill that would subject some of the largest areas of Virginia government to an independent audit has passed without opposition from both houses of the General Assembly.
The legislation, part of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s legislative package, looks to squeeze savings from education, health and human resources, and public safety, three of the four biggest sources of general fund spending.
The bill’s patron, Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge, has watched similar measures shot down repeatedly in both the House and Senate since he took office in 2002. He said the governor’s backing vastly improved its chances this year.
“There was an institutional bias against going outside of government,” Lingamfelter said of the legislature’s reluctance to venture outside of its own auditing agency. “When you have the government trying to look at the government, there are a lot of imbedded interests, there is a resistance to change.”
Legislators are increasingly scrounging for bits of fat to carve out of state government, although it’s not clear just how much savings another audit would yield. The state faces a more than $4 billion shortfall through fiscal 2012, and is looking at deep cuts to K-12 education, law enforcement and Medicaid to close that gap.
Under Lingamfelter’s bill, the audit would start July 1 and be concluded by Dec. 1, 2011. The cost of carrying out the reviews would — the bill stipulates — be paid with a portion of the savings it generates.
Amendments in the bill require the audit be conducted on a fixed-price basis. The total cost of a fixed-price review of the operations and performance of about 26 agencies could be as high as $2.7 million, according to a fiscal impact statement accompanying the bill.
The legislation passed the Senate 39-0. It passed the House 99-0.
