Here is my communication to Rep. Kelley to include urging his committee to reject the audit (hope they have that authority) and direct the SAO to re-accomplish to include budget and expenditure review:

Rep. Kelley:

Thank you again for your willingness to engage the SAO on their failure to produce the performance audit of the WDFW’s Puget Sound Dungeness Crab program in a timely manner.

That performance audit was finally issued today and posted to the SAO’s website this afternoon. Initial review of the audit has a number of sport crabbers already expressing their dismay that the SAO did not include any information regarding the expenditure of dedicated funds resulting from the $3.00 annual endorsement (and which generated over $600,000 in 2009 alone). Many sport crabbers have been concerned that those dedicated funds have not been utilized as intended by the sport crabbing community which initially presented this idea to the legislature nor by the resulting legislation.
As you may recall this performance audit was initiated by Rep. Kessler at the request of one of her north Olympic Peninsula constituents approximately three years ago. The SAO subsequently decided to outsource performance of the audit to a private firm.

The contract between the private firm and the SAO contained “Attachment A” Statement of Work which at page 9 included the following requirement:

“This performance audit will audit the sport crab fishing program, focusing on the management of the fishery, fishery monitoring and accountability reporting, and budgeting and expenditure tracking for the fishery.” (emphasis added)

The SAO then terminated that contract prior to completion, revised the statement of work, and undertook in-house performance of the audit.

As I mentioned to you earlier the failure of the SAO to accomplish this audit in a timely manner stirred conspiracy theories, undermined confidence in the WDFW and caused sport anglers to question the legitimacy of this type of special endorsements. Now that the audit has finally been issued those concerns have not been ameliorated and, in fact, have been reinforced by the fact that the SAO did not include any review of the budgeting and expenditure tracking.

ACTION REQUEST

As the Chair for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee I urge you to review the original audit requirement and determine why the final performance audit as performed by the SAO did not include the fundamental review of budgeting and propriety of funds expenditure. I further urge you to reject the audit and direct the SAO to re-accomplish the audit with emphasis on the manner in which those dedicated funds were budgeted and expended to determine whether the expenditures were within the legislative intent and efficiently utilized.

Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter.