Article published March 02, 2009
Ohio auditor still waiting on 2008 numbers
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF
COLUMBUS - If the state of Ohio was a local government and school district, State Auditor Mary Taylor would have declared it unauditable and started imposing fines.
Instead, there's little more the Republican auditor can do but complain, knowing that by the time the dust settles on what the state collected and spent in fiscal year 2008, the state budgets for 2010 and 2011 will be law.
"How will the governor know where to go fiscally if he doesn't know where he's been?" Ms. Taylor said Monday.
Even as Gov. Ted Strickland is pushing a $54 billion budget for the next two years, his administration has yet to turn over the numbers for fiscal year 2008 for a required annual audit. The fiscal year ended June 30, 2008, but she's still waiting for the closing numbers 245 days later.
Ms. Taylor said the numbers are typically available within six months of the close of a fiscal year and audits are usually completed by the following spring.
She said the state has said it's been unable to get the numbers from its massive new computerized accounting and payroll system, the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System, which has been gradually phased into operation.
She said she's been told that the numbers won't be forthcoming until after the 2010 fiscal year has begun.
"The delay we have experienced to date and the additional delay we've been told to expect appear to be unprecedented," she said. "It's most certainly troubling."
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