Tim KellerSTATE News:
SANTA FE ― Over the last three years, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has made transformational progress on long-standing challenges and addressed some of the state’s most critical issues.
In spite of budget reductions each year, the OSA has improved and streamlined processes to bring transparency and accountability to public funds. As Tim Keller concludes his tenure as State Auditor, the office is in excellent condition to continue good government work.
“Serving as New Mexico’s State Auditor has been one of the greatest honors of my life and we worked every day to make the office a force for change in advancing good government,” Keller said. “During this transition, it was a top priority to leave the office in excellent condition to carry on its critical work. The next State Auditor will walk into an office that is ready and willing to continue the mission of bringing transparency and accountability to public funds and tackling fraud, waste and abuse.”
The accomplishments include the following:
Making OSA Work Better
- Restructured the office to be accessible and responsive to agencies, policymakers and the public.
- Enhanced the OSA’s staffing and professional credentials, including doubling the number of CPAs and significantly increasing the number of specialized certifications, such as Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs).
- Ramped up the number of special investigations and audits, processing over 800 cases since 2015 and identified tens of millions of dollars in losses to state and local governments.
- Decreased audit contracting approval times by 75 percent and Firm Profile processing by 27 percent through the establishment of online contracting and firm profiles.
- Issued an Executive Order placing in-state businesses on a level playing field with out-of-state vendors when making OSA purchasing decisions.
- Cut red tape by reducing the length of the Audit Rule by over 30 percent and created the OSA’s first formal public comment process.
- Received the highest rating possible in a recent external review of OSA’s quality control processes and clean audits with no findings three years in a row.
- Consistently met or exceeded legislative performance measures.
Making State and Local Governments Work Better
- Created the New Mexico Government Accountability Office (GAO) that reported on a wide range of issues from the sexual assault evidence kit backlog to out-of-state contract spending and state agency fund balances.
- Established the state’s first deadlines for the timely completion of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).
- Significantly reduced the number of chronically unaudited entities on the “At-Risk” list and enhanced overall agency compliance rates.
- Awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to over 60 small entities throughout the state, such as land grants and acequias, to help them comply with audit requirements.
- Led the nation in providing guidance on the implementation of new tax abatement disclosure requirements for state and local governments (GASB77).
After the transition, classified staff will remain hard at work on behalf of taxpayers.
The OSA’s 2017 annual report is available here: https://www.saonm.org/media/uploads/OSA_FY_17_Annual_Report.pdf.