The state auditor is the elected official responsible for ensuring the integrity of every tax dollar spent. In carrying out that responsibility, the auditor's office itself must conduct its business with the highest integrity.
As auditor, I will restore the integrity of the office. I will do this in two ways: first, by adhering to a personal code of conduct appropriate to the auditor's position, and by revitalizing the office to be a robust watchdog for Vermont taxpayers.
I believe confidence in the state auditor is at a new low because of personal conduct issues. Of most concern to me is the use of taxpayer dollars for political campaign use. This has been well-documented and reported, and yet it bears repeating.
The current state auditor, Tom Salmon, used your tax dollars to fund political campaign activities. He used a taxpayer-purchased video camera system to tape a political fund-raising event. Recently, he used his staff and the state's e-mail system to send out a campaign press release to the Vermont media. He also used the video camera system to tape a press conference about his DUI arrest after celebrating pay raises and promotions with staff members. The press conference was called because of Auditor Salmon's arrest, a personal matter, but he still used the state's video camera and his staff to record it.
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As auditor, I will pursue a Tax Dollar Integrity program. The starting point is a personal pledge to never use a penny of your tax dollars for political purposes.
More broadly throughout state government, I will work with state agencies to review existing procedures and, if necessary, implement new rules designed to prevent the use of any tax dollars from being spent on campaign activities, from the highest level agency secretary down to front-line staff. These efforts should not be necessary, but recent conduct by the auditor demands it to restore the public's confidence.
I believe I'm uniquely qualified and prepared to revitalize the Auditor's Office. With an undergraduate degree from Williams College and a law degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, I have 22 years of experience as a policy analyst in economic development. I also worked for the Auditor's Office for five years in the 1990s. And I am the author of the Job Gap Study, a series of reports that have served as policy guides for legislators for more than a decade on issues ranging from state economic development and related tax policies to the minimum wage to the costs and benefits of greater in-state purchasing.
For example, in Phase 9 of the Job Gap Study, I reviewed the state's economic development strategies (“Economic Development in Vermont: Funding, Priorities, and Performance”). The report found serious problems and helped persuade the legislature to adopt the “Unified Economic Development Budget” (UEDB), which asks three questions: how much do we spend on economic development, for what, and with what outcomes? This had never been done.
When I reviewed this year's UEDB, I encountered numerous instances of double-counting the jobs supposedly “created” by various programs. In addition, some economic development programs credited themselves with outcomes without any legitimate method of verification.
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Sometimes this work has earned critics. After all, high-level politicians don't like to read that their programs may be ineffective and, in fact, a waste of taxpayer money. Yet asking difficult questions and speaking uncomfortable truths are exactly the tasks of the state auditor.
Vermont taxpayers deserve a strong and focused state auditor who will work tirelessly to ensure that taxpayer funds are used effectively, and who will exhibit personal conduct of the highest integrity. I am well prepared for the job.