Whither OPEGA?

The comments by Mr. Curley are fine examples of misinformed folks and/or downright mis information by partisan politics. In fact the State and Local Government drafted a unanimous memo stating

“…the Committee does not favor any diminishment of the missions, goals and independence of OPEGA or other non-partisan office. We also encourage the Council to examine partisan offices for opportunities for savings.”

Also the Opega Office has actually come in UNDER budget evrey year and recently turned back several hundred thousand dollars to the Legislature.

Hmmmm, those are the facts not the partisan misinformation being put out as fact.

Don't believe the hype! OPEGA is overrated and unnecessary, esp. in view of greater budget priorities, such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

The office is relatively new and expensive for what it actually accomplishes. The auditing can be done by the Legislature's Fiscal Office. These are difficult times calling for prioritization and tough choices. My vote would be to fund what's restored in the D's budget proposal and not save OPEGA.

Stu is exactly right!!!! Don't believe the hype!! Believe the facts not the retoric about the elderly, the children and the people with disabilities that keep getting thrown in our face as a smoke screen.

Correct on the latter Watcher. Although I don't take a position on "Liberal" or "Conservative". Stu claims that it's important to help the elderly, disabled and the children which I don't agree with. The problem is he uses that to justiy getting rid of an office that is actually helping the State. If you just go read the reports they out out you will find the following;
1. They HELPED the children by doing a review on the Gaurdian Ad-Lietium (sp) program. Children in need that were being appointed gaurdians through the court system were being neglected and forgotten and ignorned.
2. They found tens of thousands of dollars in FRAUD and waste in the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services which helps the disabled! Through their work the TAX money that Stu talks about used to help these people isn't being wasted or stolen!

I believe the savings that they have found so far since their inception has actually paid for their office. Is there any other state agency that can say that? Also they are coming in under budget every year and turning back what they don't use,,,,now there's a noval idea!
Also Stu suggest that the same thing could or is done in the Legislature's iscal Office. They don't do Auditing work, they've never don any of this in the past, and they won't in the future.

OPEGA spent hundreds of staff hours reviewing Rehabilitation Services expenditures and found approx. $100K in questionable (or worse) expenditures for client services in a 3 year period. During that same time period, approx. $27 million of total expenditures were made for Rehabilitation Services clients. Do the math - less than 0.4% of those expenditures were questioned.

OPEGA also reviewed OIT operations and basically whitewashed the wasteful efforts of that agency which is led by a decidely non-technical CIO who has been a good ol' boy in state politics almost as long as John Martin has been haunting the halls of the capitol. Remember, OIT was the agency responsible for managing the Medicaid payment system project that dumped $53 million into a system that eventually was abandoned because it didn't work properly.

Anyone who thinks OPEGA is not influenced by partisan politics has never attended a Government Oversight Committee meetings and seen how this group of partisan legislators directs OPEGA staff operations.

Hmmm. Based on one comment above I decided to actually go check out the OPEGA report mentioned.

So, calling out massive security breaches and pointing out that a lack of any meaningful program management system led to failures like the 50+ million Medicaid system is a whitewash?

Where did that conclusion come from? It seems like the person making it could not have bothered to read the report he criticized.