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Auditor can't probe stash
Deb Erdley can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7996.
Pennsylvania's top fiscal watchdog is on a short leash when it comes to the $135 million slush fund used to underwrite a controversial pay hike for lawmakers.
"State law prevents us from auditing the General Assembly," said Robert Teplitz, chief counsel to Auditor General Jack Wagner.
Wagner's office, charged with investigating state agencies, has little to say about the inner workings of the 253-member General Assembly. And it's been that way since 1966, when then-Attorney General Edward Friedman ruled the Legislature was exempt from the auditor general's scrutiny. The opinion became state law in 1970.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently highlighted the obscure $135 million slush fund controlled by Democrat and Republican legislative leaders. They are using the fund to finance the middle-of-the-night pay hikes of 16 to 34 percent lawmakers voted themselves.
To bypass constitutional restrictions, many lawmakers are taking their pay raise immediately in the form of so-called "unvouchered expenses" from the slush fund. The Constitution prohibits lawmakers from increasing their pay during their term of office.
Some outraged citizens groups want to know why the Legislature is exempt from the rules it imposes on other agencies.
"The Legislature protects itself from the very measure of accountability it insists upon for everyone else. It is the worst kind of double standard. It is a grotesque disservice to taxpayers," said Timothy Potts, the former legislative staffer who organized Democracy Rising PA, a broad coalition of citizen groups demanding legislative reform.
The only glimpse of how lawmakers spend money comes from the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission, an obscure eight-member group created 35 years ago to decide who looks at its books and how. The commission last year hired national accounting firm Ernst & Young to audit the General Assembly.
In a 19-page report, Ernst & Young declared its auditors found no violations of House and Senate spending guidelines.
But even the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission acknowledged the outside auditors are not permitted to look too deeply. That's because lawmakers severely limit what the auditors can examine.
According to the report, the auditors could not determine whether:
Despite the limitations of the audit, legislative leaders declared it is adequate.
Steve Miskin, spokesman for the House Republican Caucus, said there is "an audit performed."
Speaking through a spokeswoman, House Minority Leader H. William DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, and Minority Whip Rep. Mike Veon, D-Beaver, said they are "very satisfied with audit procedures."
Erik Arneson, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader David Brightbill, R-Lebanon, said it's important to use professional outside auditors to sidestep the possibility of a report from an ambitious auditor general.
Wagner, a Beechview Democrat elected auditor general last year, maintains he serves only one client.
"Our customer is the taxpayer, not the person we're auditing," said Wagner's communications director Steve Halvonik.
The auditor general's lack of standing to audit the Legislature surprised former state Rep. Jeffrey Coleman, R-Apollo, who served for four years before becoming vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg think tank.
"It's important any time taxpayers' money is used to fund government operations that scrutiny and transparency follow," said Coleman. "It would be reasonable to expect the state agency charged with the responsibility of being the taxpayers' fiscal watchdog to have oversight."
Russ Diamond of Annville, Lebanon County, founder of pacleansweep.com, an Internet-based group formed in the wake of the legislative pay raise, said it's "amazing that the Legislature would be immune" from audits by the auditor general.
The Ernst & Young audit financed by the Legislature is "not looking at whether (the spending) is appropriate," Diamond said. It means the audit just looks at whether the numbers add up, he said.
"When you are accountable to no one, there's all kinds of room for every type of corruption," Diamond said. "You'd think that person (auditor general) would have the authority. You'd think that (power) would extend to all public funds and expenditures."
Joseph Elinich, 57, of Ross, is a retired federal employee who coordinated operations for 30 Social Security offices in Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He is among the scores of citizens who have contacted the Trib about legislative spending.
Elinich said he worries that a lack of accountability creates a potential for fraud.
"It's gotten to the point that (the Legislature) is the ruling class, and they consider themselves exempt from law," Elinich said.
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