Yesterday, an audit of state sponsored film subsidies caused a kerfuffle among Colorado’s chattering class because (shocking!) the audit showed that the film subsidies wasted taxpayer dollars. While we have railed against the film subsidies for ages, we came up with a list of other offices and projects that sorely needed an audit. Here are our top five:
- Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing – This sounds like it might be the department of health, but it’s not. It’s an organization that oversees a bunch of random stuff from fluffy public relations programs to the behemoth Medicaid funding management. According to the Colorado State Auditor’s office, it would appear that a financial audit of any department has not occurred since 2000. A performance audit of Medicaid was released in August 2016 and showed that some people who were ineligible for Medicaid were not kicked off the rolls. In fairness, private insurers have had more practice kicking enrollees off their plans. Thanks Obamacare.
- Connect for Health Colorado – Preliminary audits of the Colorado health exchange found it was a complete boondoggle. We included it on our list because we believe it’s a disaster; however, there is an audit underway that will be published next month – and we expect it to be delicious. Downside: you can no longer get ($40,000 worth) of chapstick on the 16th Street Mall.
- Education – Because we all know that education. Plus, maybe if we’re lucky, through the audit process, we might finally learn what Democratic Congressional candidate Andy Kerr does as a teacher on special assignment. There’s got to be some kind of definition in that department there, right? Jokes.
- Energy – This is the office that lost like $200 million a few years ago. The state auditor just finished up an audit in January, but for the love of God, you lose $200 million, you should be audited always.
- Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment – These folks give out a lot of grants, like the film office, so it would be great to know if the money is being used wisely.
We know that audits take time and they cost resources, but surely an audit of the Energy Office would use fewer than $200 million in resources, for example.