Beacon Hill audit hits nerves
State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s nearly unprecedented announcement that her office has begun an audit of the state Legislature is not being met with applause.
“Under the Massachusetts Constitution and as the separation of powers clause dictates, the Senate is required to manage its own business and set its own rules,” a spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka told the Herald.
On Tuesday, DiZoglio, in keeping with a long-standing campaign commitment, announced the Office of the State Auditor had begun an audit of the House and Senate.
“As I committed, my office has begun an audit of the state Legislature. We hope this will increase transparency, accountability and equity in an area of state government that has been completely ignored,” the former state Senator from Methuen said in a statement announcing the audit.
According to DiZoglio, the last time her office conducted an audit of the Legislature’s procedures and practices was in 1922, while Massachusetts “ranks as one of the least transparent and least accessible state governments in the nation,” she said.
However, according to Spilka’s spokesperson, the Senate has been audited annually, as required by their internal rules.
“Those rules require that the Senate undergoes an audit every fiscal year by a certified public accounting firm experienced in auditing governmental entities and provide that audit to the public,” the spokesperson said. “Further, Senate business is made public through journals, calendars and recordings of each session, while payroll and other financial information is publicly available on the Comptroller’s website.”
House Speaker Ron Mariano’s office did not offer comment on the proposed audit.
The audit announcement was met with some support from outside the State House, however.
“If Auditor DiZoglio is actually able to make good on her promise to audit the legislature, it will be a welcomed check on the power of the most opaque state government in the country and a victory for the people of the Commonwealth,” Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said in a Wednesday statement.
DiZoglio told the Herald Tuesday she is not at liberty to discuss precisely what her office is looking into but that a full public report would be made available when the audit is complete.