To My Constituents,

There has been a lot of news lately about fraud and lack of accountability with public funds. While not all of these stories come from Montana, these are issues I take very seriously as one of the most important roles of the legislature is to appropriate money. As your state senator and as a member of the Senate Finance and Claims Committee I am conscious of the responsibility to spend money wisely. It is your tax money that the government spends, and spending should be as efficient as possible and on legitimate functions of government.

I have heard a lot of arguments supporting spending more money to take advantage of federal matching funds, and even that we don’t need to have much oversight of federal money. However, my view is that money from the Federal Government is still your money because it comes from taxes. Every dollar the state spends should be subject to scrutiny.

I am not so naïve to believe that we can eliminate all attempts at fraud. However, you should expect that your state government and legislature is doing all it can to identify and stop fraud, as well as to reduce opportunity for fraud to occur.

Article V, Section 10, of the State Constitution requires the legislature to “establish a legislative post-audit committee which shall supervise post-auditing duties provided by law”. This is the reason for the Legislative Audit Committee, on which I serve.

The Legislative Audit Committee oversees the audit process and routinely hears reports from the Legislative Audit Division (LAD) personnel. The legislative auditors conduct reviews of departments, divisions, programs, and other functions of government. They conduct financial compliance audits to ensure money is spent wisely and properly accounted for. They also conduct performance audits to ensure operations are efficient. LAD has also begun conducting Information Technology audits to help ensure IT is used properly and to identify ways to best protect data collected by the state.

One of the most important things the Audit Division does is operate the Fraud Hotline that anyone can use to report waste fraud or abuse in government. Reports are anonymous to protect whistleblowers within government. The public is also able to submit a report. Once a report is received, LAD will work to confirm if waste, fraud, or abuse has occurred, or refer the complaint to the agency that has jurisdiction. If evidence of a crime is found, the matter is referred to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

The Legislative Audit Division gives us great tools to know how our government agencies are operating and allows the legislature to take action to make sure money is being spent wisely and within the parameters the legislature has established through law.

The Legislative Audit Committee meets every few months. Our next meeting is this week on January 15. We will hear financial compliance audits of the Department of Justice and Secretary of State. There will be a report on the waste, fraud, and abuse hotline, and an IT audit of Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be presented. We will also hear follow-ups from past performance audits of the Board of Housing, Department of Revenue, and the Judicial Branch.

You can follow the Committee’s work and learn more about the Audit Division online at www.legmt.gov/lad.

Senator Forrest J. Mandeville, Senate District 28

Published on Montana Independent Substack