Performance audits

Although rare, some Washington workers are employed by two state agencies at the same time, and the state can do more to ensure these instances are appropriately managed, according to a new performance audit by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

Auditors reviewed dual employment in state agencies, in which one person holds two different positions. Out of 75,000 state workers, auditors identified 93 who were dual employed, with an average of six months of overlapping payroll payments.

The Washington State Patrol has effectively eliminated the state’s backlog of untested sexual assault kits, and now is testing nearly all kits within 45 days, according to a follow-up performance audit by the Office of the Washington State Auditor. 

A program intended to help people in low-income housing eventually buy their homes has yet to be used, according to a new performance audit by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

The federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program is intended to encourage development of affordable rental housing, but a few program projects allow tenants to buy their homes. The Housing Finance Commission manages this program in Washington.

Medicaid provides needed health care for more than one in four people in Washington, at a cost of about $19.6 billion a year. However, Washington also pays millions of dollars for Medicaid coverage of people already insured by other states, according to a new performance audit by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

More than a decade after voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana in Washington, the state still lacks a system able to track cannabis from production through processing to retail sale, according to a follow-up performance audit released today by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

Washington colleges and universities accept nearly all the college-level credits students earn in high school – if the students follow through on a crucial step in the transfer process, according to a report released today by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

Each month, Washington relies on the aging Agency Financial Reporting System to process $4.3 billion in payments. In less than a year, the state plans to move to a new administrative system, a necessary but immensely complex information technology project affecting more than 100 agencies.

The project is overseen by the One Washington program, which chose Workday, a cloud-based enterprise resource planning system, to modernize the state's administrative systems.

Like most states, Washington reports shortages of qualified special education staff. Without properly trained staff, school districts struggle to provide eligible students with important services like lessons to develop study skills, speech or physical therapy, behavior management and vocational education.

Law enforcement officers can seize property they believe has been involved in or is the proceeds of a crime through a legal tool called civil asset forfeiture. The process does not require an arrest, charge or criminal conviction of the property’s owner. 

In a new report, the first of its kind in the state, the Office of the Washington State Auditor described how civil asset forfeiture works, based on an analysis of data and practices at eight law enforcement agencies.  

Certain cities and counties in Washington are required to meet a 120-day deadline to make decisions on development permits. However, the actual processing time varies widely between localities and permit types, a new performance audit found.