LINCOLN — Gov. Dave Heineman said Friday he hasn't had the time to read a scathing audit of the state's child welfare reform initiative because he was hosting foreign business officials in Nebraska this week for a trade mission.
But the governor did take time Friday to criticize the state auditor for sharing his findings with the news media before giving a copy to the Governor's Office.
"It's interesting," Heineman said during a press conference about the trade mission. "If the auditor wants to help, maybe he ought to talk to us about it."
State Auditor Mike Foley said state officials had a draft of the audit at least six weeks before the release of the final version Wednesday.
Foley said he gave a copy to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services on July 25 and questioned why the governor wasn't aware of its findings.
Foley's office concluded that HHS, for example, lacked sufficient accountability over spending in the privatization effort, resulting in a 27 percent spending increase. Privatization had been presented as costing no more taxpayer money than when the state oversaw the services.
"Doesn't the agency director talk to the governor?" the auditor asked.
Foley said he typically shares a draft audit with an agency 10 days before its final release but "bent over backward" for HHS, which requested a draft much earlier.
"We knew these findings were pretty heavy and wanted to give (the agency) as much time to respond as they wanted," the auditor said.
Kerry Winterer, the chief executive officer of HHS, said Friday he had alerted the governor about the impending audit report but didn't have substantive conversations with his boss about the findings because, at the time, it was just a draft.
Winterer said he had hoped the agency could persuade Foley to alter his findings before releasing the final audit.
Heineman said he planned to comment on the audit in the next few days.
This week, he and state economic development officials have hosted more than 100 business representatives from 15 countries to drum up interest in moving to Nebraska or buying more goods from companies in the state.
In a related matter, two state senators, Heath Mello and Jeremy Nordquist, called on the Legislature to change its budgeting process so lawmakers can learn more about how agencies like HHS are spending taxpayer money.
The two senators, who sit on the Legislature's budget-writing Appropriations Committee, said that adopting "performance-based budgeting" would require HHS to clearly articulate the initiative's goals and whether it's meeting those goals so lawmakers can weigh whether the program is worthwhile.
This week's audit was "beyond alarming" because of the lack of fiscal accountability displayed by HHS, Nordquist said.
Mello said it was "like pulling teeth" to get HHS to reveal how it came up with $30 million in extra funds last year to pour into the struggling child-welfare privatization effort.
It took at least three weeks, in one instance, to learn that HHS was shifting money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to shore up the initiative.
"It was a transparency nightmare," Mello said.
The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Lavon Heidemann of Elk Creek, said he questioned whether state senators needed to "micromanage" agencies like HHS, although he did say the agency has had "challenges" in providing information.
But overall, Heidemann said, Nebraska's budgeting process is working well and he thinks there is no need to adopt a change like performance-based budgeting.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com
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