Creativity comes out of a mind that sees things in a different way. Auditors begin with a distinct advantage because they are outsiders who observe the workings of an organization where everything is new to them, and no question is stupid. Combine this perspective with their responsibility to identify possible improvements; auditors must be creative on the public's behalf.
This 20th anniversary of our association is a good time to consider the progress ALGA has made toward achieving its purposes.
The First 20 Years
Here are the elements of our mission set forth 20 years ago and my brief comments on each:
Bringing together professional local government auditors Before ALGA, local auditors were isolated and yet we were struggling with many common challenges. We had so much to share with each other about our successes, strategies, and challenges but no common grounds. ALGA, an organization of, by, and for local government auditors was a fundamental need. The Membership Committee was created and has been successful in ensuring that every local auditor knows about and considers joining our association.
You've heard the old saw about those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it. The same goes for audits. Ignore our recommendations and the waste, fraud, or risk exposure will continue.
Auditors are historians. We study the past, gather evidence, make causal connections, and document our research with the hope that things could be done better. While historians do not produce findings - no criteria or recommendations - they have a greater breadth and reach than auditors. Historians study the interplay of policies, organizations, and personalities.
First of all, I want to defend inertia, which helps maintain order in the world. Inertia is the tendency of things to continue to stay where they are. Without inertia, your coffee cup might not be where you left it; neither would your car.
But inertia is also the sofa firmly planted in front of the television, with you on it. Organizations get dragged down by people, rules, inattention to changing conditions, and all the other vicissitudes of a group of humans trying to accomplish a complex task. I'm sure you can think of dozens of audits where the ultimate, deep down root cause of the findings was inertia. "Just didn't get around to it," the supervisor says in a candid moment.
I don't presume to fill Mark Funkhouser's shoes, which I'm sure are much larger than my size 10s, but I'd like to share some of my observations as an auditor here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I intend to write about the challenges and strategies of performance auditing, to provoke debate, and help us all be better professionals. I'll try to keep the tone light and my black humor lightened to the color of Portland's winter sky.
Opportunities for Improvement