Development in governmental auditing: Their impact on the academic and business communities;

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Developments in Governmental Auditing: Their Impact On the Academic and Business Communities
Richard E. Brown
Legislative Post Auditor, State of Kansas
Thank you very much for inviting me here tonight. The opportunity for a state official to give advice to representatives of the private and university worlds was an invitation I could not pass up! As Mark Twain was supposed to have said: "To do good is noble; to instruct others in doing good is just as noble and much easier."
My comments this evening will be in two parts. First, I want to tell you about what I know best: auditing in Kansas and the developments that I have witnessed here during the past nearly eight years. I believe you will find, as I always tell the classes I teach in auditing, that Kansas is indeed in the mainstream of what is happening nationally in governmental auditing. Second, based on this experience, I want to suggest some areas of concern in governmental auditing for all of us, problems which I believe will need our attention in the years ahead.
The Evolutionary Changes in the Kansas Audit Operation
The audit operation in the State of Kansas gets its basic mandate from the Legislative Post Audit Act of 1971. This is a well-researched document that was developed and written with a great deal of care and only after considerable expert testimony was received. That care and attention to detail shows in the legislation.
Under the terms of the statute, the audit operation in Kansas has two key units. The first is the Legislative Post Audit Committee. The composition of that Committee is made up of the bipartisan leadership of the two houses of the Kansas Legislature and includes the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, the Majority Leader and Minority Leader of the two houses, the chairmen of the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees, and a minority member of each Ways and Means Committee appointed by the Minority Leader. The duties of the Legislative Post Audit Committee include appointing the Post Auditor to a four-year term of office, choosing performance audit topics, and receiving and acting on all audit reports. The second main component of the audit operation in Kansas is the Legislative Division of Post Audit, which is the administrative arm of the audit operation. The Division is headed by the Post Auditor, who has complete management responsibility over the 40-member staff and all audit activity.
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