Why Should Delaware Care?
The Delaware Office of Auditor Accounts holds a key role in auditing tax-funded initiatives across the state, ensuring that taxpayers’ money is being spent properly. New legislation would make the office’s job easier, and unhindered by outside forces.
Delaware lawmakers could hold their first vote Tuesday on a bill that would bolster the state’s key financial watchdog, giving its office the ability to subpoena necessary documents for its reports.
The Office of Auditor Accounts, which is run by State Auditor Lydia York, frequently audits different tax-funded state agencies and organizations. If passed, it could breathe new life into an elected office that has otherwise been at the mercy of the courts to approve subpoenas.
The bill also comes months after a recent report that said the University of Delaware refused to hand over employment records pertaining to Delaware legislators who were on its payroll to the auditor’s office.
What’s in the bill?
House Bill 6, sponsored by House Majority Whip Ed Osienski (D-Newark), was unanimously moved out of the House Administration Committee on Jan. 22, where it received virtually no discussion.
The bill is an amendment to the state auditor’s office authority, and gives its chief auditor and surrounding deputies more direct subpoena power.
Osienski said the bill is meant to bring the office up to speed with other non-Department of Justice agencies with subpoena power like the Delaware Department of Insurance, Fire Marshal’s Office and Department of Labor.
In an interview, York said this bill came as a request from her office’s audit staff.
According to the bill, the office currently has to petition Delaware Superior Courts to compel witnesses and organizations to give them documents and testimony. This new legislation strikes that language out, giving the office the legal footing to get those documents themselves.
If passed, the bill could remove weeks of waiting for courts to approve subpoena and free up other resources to get reports done, York said.
“We’d really rather be able to get the information without the target knowing necessarily in advance,” York said. “It’s a tool that’s necessary from time to time when people aren’t being as forthcoming as they ought to be.”
The office will also have the ability to hold those who reject their subpoenas in contempt of court, should they not respond to the auditor’s office.
Was this aimed at UD?
One week after Delaware’s primary election, the auditor’s office released a report highlighting state legislators who had worked multiple state-paid jobs, while also serving in their elected capacities.
The report examined if Delaware officials working two jobs funded by taxpayers had properly accounted for their time. To determine this, the auditor’s office examined how organizations complied with the state’s Dual Employment law.
The law requires organizations “to limit compensation paid to persons employed with the covered organizations who also serve in elected and paid appointed offices.”
Many of the officials highlighted in the audit held dual roles at different universities across the state, like the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College, with the majority working at the former.
But much of what could have made the report more impactful was stymied by the University of Delaware, and its refusal to cooperate with the audit. York’s office was unable to conclude whether the university had paid those officials for coincident time.
York said HB 6 is not in response to UD. Additionally, Osienski said the bill was not targeted at UD, but instead a way to put that subpoena power in their hands, expediting audits.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with any particular engagement,” York said. “This is more of, frankly, a rationalization of our authority to be consistent with the other agencies that can do subpoenas as well.”
Close to the report’s release, UD sent a strong rebuke of the audit’s findings in a letter to York’s office. In the letter, UD’s lawyers balked at the idea that it was bound to the Dual Employment Law, and said the university’s charter “prohibits” it from complying with the audit.
Additionally, the letter strongly refused assertions made by the state auditor that UD failed to comply with the law. The university argued it does not qualify as a state agency that would be bound by the Dual Employment Law.
The University of Delaware received more than $140 million from the General Assembly this summer, which accounts for more than 10% of UD’s annual operating budget.
When asked about the pending legislation, a spokesperson for the university said only it’s “committed to compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
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