While Oklahoma leaders wrestle with a $30 million mismanagement being investigated at the State Health Department, Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy is suggesting maybe other state agencies could take a lesson from what the Corporation Commission has successfully done.
Writing in The Oklahoman on Wednesday, Jan. 24, Murphy said the Commission’s 2013 decision to ask the State Auditor and Inspector to embed auditors within the agency has worked.
“We have seen first-hand the effectiveness of being proactive when it comes to the millions of dollars that flow through this agency as it works to protect the public interest and foster economic development in its regulation of the energy, transportation and utility sectors,” wrote Murphy.
She said the $650,000 the commission spent since 2007 on 27 financial audits, nine operational audits, 31 performance audits and 33 federal grant reviews was only a “tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars protected by the audits and reviews.”
Only two findings are still pending resolution said Murphy.
“The “pending resolution” items show just how effective a robust accountability effort can be,” said the Commissioner. “Just as annual physicals can result in identification and treatment of relatively small medical problems before they become life-threatening, so too do all these ‘checkups’ of agency business.”
Murphy made no mention or reference to the state’s ongoing financial crisis nor of the scandal that is now under investigation by the State Auditor’s office and federal agencies at the Health department.
She is also a candidate for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor.
