Zeigler says budget cuts require him to perform audits himself
Thursday, June 1, 2017, State Auditor Jim Zeigler (R) announced that he will have to become a “field auditor” to keep his office operating after the Legislature cut his budget for the third year in a row.
Zeigler said, “This marks the third year in a row that our budget has been cut. We are $368,400 below sea level. With the severe cuts the previous two years, we cannot do our constitutional job of property inventories with this latest cut. We had already cut everything we could after the last two budget cuts, so there is nothing left to cut.”
When Zeigler took office in January 2015, the office had $1,066,922 to operate. That will drop to just $762,575 starting in October 1 of this year. That represents a cut of 28.5 percent since FY2015.
Zeigler said, “We have already dropped from 11 full-time and 1 part-time to 6 full-time and 2 part-time employees. We dropped from 5 field auditors to 2 full-time and 1 part-time to audit the entire state. The only option left is for me to replace one of the field auditors myself.”
Read more: http://www.alreporter.com/2017/06/02/state-auditor-says-budget-cuts-will-require-him-to-perform-audits-himself/
