SPONSOR: Martin
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted "Do Pass" by the Special Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs by a vote of 14 to 1. Voted "Do Pass" by the Standing Committee on Rules-Legislative by a vote of 10 to 0.
This bill provides that in instances where a State agency subgrants or allocates public funds to local governments, regional councils of government, other local groups, or private or semiprivate institutions or agencies, the State Auditor will have the authority to examine the books and records of the recipient of the funds to the extent necessary to supervise the receipt and expenditure of public funds and to determine proper use in accordance with State and Federal laws and regulations.
PROPONENTS: Supporters say that the bill gives the Auditor power to audit subgrantees; when complaints come in about funding of groups or a vendor working with the department, currently the Auditor has to spend time and resources auditing the whole department but this would let him audit the specific group, vendor, or program in question; this is more efficient and lets them better investigate complaints coming in from the whistleblower hotline. This will be more efficient with resources; the sponsor has been working with the Auditor’s office. Currently, if a whistleblower submits a complaint on a subgrantee, the Auditor sends an investigative letter to the State agency; with this bill, they would not need to audit the entire program, but look into just one subgrantee. This would be if they think there is just one bad actor, the Auditor could still conduct a full audit if they think there are bigger issues within the program or department.
Testifying in person for the bill were Representative Martin; Arnie Dienoff; and Brandon Alexander, Missouri State Auditors Office.
OPPONENTS: There was no opposition voiced to the committee.
Written testimony has been submitted for this bill. The full written testimony and witnesses testifying online can be found under Testimony on the bill page on the House website.
Statutes affected: