Auditors saved state $59M

Legislative auditors saved Nevada government a total of $59 million over the past two years, conducting 24 audits that accounted for about one-quarter of the total savings, an Assembly committee heard Wednesday.

The remainder reflects savings realized in 2017-18 as the result of earlier audits, auditor Rocky Cooper told the Assembly Ways and Means committee in presenting the audit division’s two-year summary report.

The division audits state agencies on costs, compliance, performance and procedures. It prepares draft reports of findings, recommends changes and issues a final report that incorporates the agency’s response and a timetable for corrective action.

Among 140 recommendations auditors issued with a six-month timetable for correction, 130 have been fully implemented, Cooper told the Ways and Means panel. The committee’s oversight of agency budgets, he said, is the “teeth in the process” that ensures agency compliance with the audit division’s findings.

“I’ve frequently been asked, well, where’s the hammer to implement these recommendations, and it really can rest with this committee,” Cooper said.

Audit division reports in 2017-18, in some cases covering periods dating back several years, found provider overpayments and filthy conditions in state-funded homes for the mentally ill; provider overpayments by the

Aging and Disability Services Division; overpayments to Health and Human Services director grantees; unspent class-size reduction funds that were not properly returned to the state; and uncollected user fees at state parks.

“This is a very valuable document that you can go back to as you go through the session and look at some of the previous issues that agencies have,” said Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, D-las Vegas, the committee chair. “We do like to keep an eye on them through the interim, when we can.” 36 percent annually, which would represent a drastic drop from the

500 percent or higher rates that are attached to most payday loans in Nevada.

The goal is to help prevent those who use the highly criticized loans from getting trapped in a “cycle of poverty,” said the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Heidi Swank, D-las Vegas.

“A 36 percent interest rate balances both that risk borne by the business but also doesn’t overcharge and create that cycle of poverty that happens if people get stuck in these payday loans,” Swank said.

The bill was introduced in the Assembly Wednesday and referred to the Commerce and Labor Committee, where it will be discussed at a later date.