Lawmakers, not inspectors, should look for government waste

On the surface, it sounds like a good plan for identifying waste in Wisconsin state government. Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill that would put inspectors general in more than a dozen state agencies. The bill calls for creating the Office of Inspector General, hiring inspectors to investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in 16 state government agencies. Any reports of fraud would be forwarded to the Department of Justice, and any evidence of waste or abuse would be forwarded to the legislature. The bill wouldn’t be cheap. This could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. But the fact is, we already have the oversight in place to identify areas of government waste. The directors of each of these agencies already have as part of their job description operating their agency efficiently. And the Legislature is in place to oversee those department heads. And let’s not forget the Governor’s role in operating an efficient government. We don’t need another layer of state government, which likely would cost more than any savings these inspectors might find. Sounds like the legislature wants to contract out that part of its job. But the biggest fear of this plan is how it would open the door to cronyism. The party in control of the legislature would be the one to appoint these inspectors, so any calls for investigations would almost certainly be tied to partisan wishes. We have a system in place now to identify government waste, and don’t need to make government bigger.