Pierce County Auditor candidate Julie Anderson called this morning to let us know that she discovered a couple of errors in one of her campaign fliers. (Due credit - Usually when we get such a call from a candidate, it's to point out a mistake in an opponent's campaign literature.)

Anderson was doorbelling down in University Place when she noticed the misstatements:

• The literature said she has been on the Tacoma City Council for nearly seven years. Actually, she came into office in 2004.

• The wording says she helped create the city's first ethics code. It should have said board of ethics.

"I pulled them back as fast as I could," after discovering the errors, she said. That meant having to scrap 50,000 items - about $4,000 worth of printing. About 250 to 300 fliers had already been distributed at her kickoff party and to some University Place voters.

Anderson calls the mistake a "big lesson" for her. "I just wasn't watching the editing process closely enough," she says. She acknowledges that paying close attention to details is an important attribute for a county auditor, who oversees elections, document recording and licensing. But when mistakes happen, she says, it's also important to disclose them and rectify them.

Saying she wants to concentrate on her run for Pierce County Auditor, Julie Anderson said today was her last day as a senior policy adviser for the state Department of Commerce. She has held the job since March of 2007.

“When I filed for candidacy, I knew this would be a tough race. I didn’t want to work full-time as a state employee and run a serious campaign simultaneously,” Anderson said in a statement issued by her campaign. “I resigned to protect the integrity of State government and to show that I am serious about this campaign.”

She said she and her supervisor had discussed taking a leave of absence or furlough but decided it was best for her to resign.
Anderson said she hoped the resignation would head off questions of impropriety and allow her to concentrate on her campaign.

Tacoma council positions are part time and most members have other jobs. Anderson is currently the deputy mayor, a position selected by other members of the council.

That's essentially what state Auditor Brian Sonntag, through an agency spokeswoman, said about his April 24 trip to Dallas, Texas to speak to the Association of Government Accountants.

He spent $1,273.45 of taxpayer money to do so. And he didn't ask for permission from Gov. Chris Gregoire's budget office.

Kara Klotz, who's filling in for Auditor's office chief spokeswoman Mindy Chambers, said Sonntag made the commitment to speak at the event back in 2008 and he felt obliged to follow through in 2009.

She said Sonntag contends that because he is a separately elected state official, he doesn't have to "get approval from the governor's office" for out-of-state travel.

The governor's budget office thinks otherwise.

"If the travel took place before the Legislature passed their freeze, then he would be correct, as the Gov's freeze was not mandatory for separately electeds," Glenn Kuper, spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire's budget office, said in an e-mail earlier today. "If it was after the law was passed and signed, then we believe he is covered by the provisions."

The law took effect Feb. 18. Sonntag's trip was April 24. Looks as if Sonntage should have asked for permission.

Here's what the law says: (Section 9 of SB 5460): "State agencies of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches shall not make expenditures for the cost or reimbursement of out-of-state travel or out-of-state training by state employees where the travel or training is not related to (1) an emergency or other catastrophic event that requires government action to protect life or public safety, or
(2) direct service delivery, and the travel or training occurs after the effective date of this section and before July 1, 2009."

Is the auditor's office a state agency? I think so.

Here's the item I posted back in April on Sonntag's trip to Dallas.

I'm reminded of the outrage Sonntag expressed when the Legislature passed a budget that took about $16 million of the $26 million he wanted to spend to conduct performance audits over the next couple years. (The Guv gave some of it back to him, with conditions, sorta. We'll see what the Legislature does in the supplemental budget next January.)

I wonder if the lawmakers who voted to impose the travel freeze on state workers will ask him about the $407 for the hotel room, the $192 per diem for meals, the $288 for the rental car, the $314 for airfare or the $72 for airport parking.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And I'm thinkin' that particular expenditure would be disallowed if there were an audit of the Auditor.

Just checkin'. I would have waited until I ran into Brian Sonntag at the Tacoma Costco again, but I'm not sure when our paths will cross there.

My McClatchy newspaper colleague Brad Shannon reported this morning that State Auditor Brian Sonntag was in Dallas this morning, talking about performance audits.

And I know any out-of-state travel has to be approved by the governor's budget office, unless, of course, Sonntag is paying his own way. Or someone other than Washington state is picking up the tab.

Boy, I sure hope he isn't using any of the state performance audit money. Wouldn't look good to the KVI talk radio crowd.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted 14-8, along party lines, to raise recording fees for real estate transactions to $30 from $10 to raise more money for the homeless programs.

Rep. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, said the recent economic downturn is likely to add 20,000 more people to the ranks of the homeless, so raising the fee is timely.

The fee increase is contained in House Bill 2331. Here's the report that says how much money would be raised in 2009-11. It would be more than $20 million.

I haven't checked this out yet, but I'm told the House budget raises a whole slew of fees, enough to bring in somewhere between $100 million and $200 million. It could be more. (See earlier post about health care professions fees.)

Rep. Gary Alexander of Olympia, top Republican on that committee, served notice that he plans to challenge that fee when the bill comes up for a vote by the full House because he believes it is a tax. A tax increase would take a two-third majority vote in favor to win approval. A fee hike needs only a simple majority.

Alexander said including all the other surcharges on recording fees, it now costs $62 to file a document, up from only $5 several years ago.

My colleague at the Olympian, Adam Wilson, covered this issue a couple days ago, and his story appears below.

Further down is the blog post by Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center and even further down is the testimony of state Auditor Brian Sonntag before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

All of this brought to your (and my) attention by Tim Eyman, who was prime sponsor of Initiative 900, the 2005 measure approved by vote to authorize performance audits.

I-900 has a formula for calculating how much money Sonntag should get each year for conduct his performance audits. It generates about $30 million every two years and the Legislature wants to make the auditor do some of their work and the governor's work with part of that money.

Sonntag blasts "assault" on performance auditing

BY ADAM WILSON
THE OLYMPIAN

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Both the House and Senate budget proposals this week would take a chunk out of the State Auditor’s Office performance audits, which measure the bang-for-the-buck worth of government programs.

"To take more than half of the revenue that voters permanently designated for performance audits and use it to fund other programs undercuts the performance audit authority that citizens directly gave to their independent state auditor," Brian Sonntag, that auditor, told senators this afternoon. "That change . . .and the precedent it sets is absolutely unacceptable."

He said the plan to move $15 million in performance audit money from his office to auditing programs in the Legislature and the governor’s office as "nothing short of an assault on what citizens expect the state to do."

=> Read more!

That is, budget-writers spent almost $3 billion in federal stimulus funds, took $800 million from building projects and plowed the money into other state programs and spent most of the $700 million Rainy Day savings account.

"We are using federal money, which has been a godsend," said Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

She said the House budget proposal would be balanced, but she expects a tax package to be put to voters at some point, perhaps providing additional funding for education and-or long-term care.

"It's very likely that a proposal will come," Linville said. "(But) the revenue package is not something we're pinning all of our hopes on."

=> Read more!

I seriously expected to read news accounts of legislators and state officials being trampled to death by each other in the stampede to appear before the state Salary Commission and beg them "Please, don't give us a raise!"

The announcements were coming in such quick succession that I couldn't keep up....the governor, Republican lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, new state treasurer Jim McIntire. House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, rather than risk reinjuring her aching neck, avoided the fray. She wrote a letter.

And then, of course, I saw what Randy Dorn had to say. (If anyone can figure out what he was saying, would you please tell me?)

It sounded as if he really, really, really wanted to get paid more but couldn't come right out and say that because everyone else was being so, well, self-sacrificing. So instead, he started building a case for a humongous raise in 2011 and 2012. (See, if you're a state employee, your retirement is based on your highest two years of pay in your final five years of work.)

There's still time, Randy. All you have to do is hang on for two years, get a pay raise for the final two years of your term after the economy improves, and you can accomplish through legitimate work what you couldn't do through special legislation.

Here's what Brad Shannon wrote in his story about the salary commission vote. And here's what Brad wrote about Dorn's appearance.

There will be public hearings through May, then a final decision by the commission.

And here's the story I wrote last year about Dorn trying to boost his pension by about $90,000 a year.

Questions on candidate pension
A candidate for state schools superintendent tried for two years to get lawmakers to boost his pension. He says costs cited by the state were exaggerated.

=> Read more!

Sure, a swearing in ceremony is supposed to be serious. After all, most of these folks spent a lot of money to win these offices.

But Lt. Gov. Brad Owen felt the need to speed things along and lighten then up after Brian Sonntag took the oath for his fifth term as state Auditor. Unlike previous office holders who shook the hands of a few of the dignitaries on the rostrum in the House Chambers, Sonntag shook every single hand.

Owen started tapping his finger on the podium and then started humming the theme from Jeopardy. You know, the music that plays while contestants are trying to find the answer to Final Jeopardy.

Sonntag finally made it back to his seat and said in a stage whisper, "Hey, they're all voters."

An alert reader (lobbyist Jim King) pointed out that Auditor Brian Sonntag gets to fill in for Gov. Chris Gregoire this weekend because all the people ahead of him are out of state this weekend.

The Washington constitution lays out the order of succession of who takes over as governor in the event of "disablility" of the real governor (I guess being out of state counts as a disability.)

1. Lt. Gov. Brad Owen (but he's leaving Friday).
2. Secretary of State Sam Reed (he's in Oregon for the weekend).
3. Treasurer Mike Murphy (he's out of state now and isn't back until Jan. 6.
4. Auditor Brian Sonntag (Bingo! He's a homebody for the holidays.)

After that it would have been Attorney General Rob McKenna, Schools Superintendent Terry Bergeson and, finally, Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland.

So, the governor wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel for her temporary replacement. She scraped the middle.

Here is my earlier post about Sonntag filling in for the guv this weekend.

OK. It's only for a few days, but, yes, it's true.

Brian Sonntag, darling of the conservative radio talk-show circuit, will take over as governor while both Gov. Chris Gregoire and Lt. Gov. Brad Owen are out of state. (Who knew the auditor was next in line of succession?)

Gregoire sent Sonntag a note, informing him that she'll be gone Dec. 26-29 and Owen will be gone after the 26th, so Sonntag will have to fill in from 3:45 p.m. Friday until 5:55 p.m. Monday.

How much trouble can he get into over a long weekend? I suppose he can call out the National Guard and invade Canada, but most of the Guardsmen are otherwise disposed.

If nothing else, now we know why John Carlson and his listeners believe in Christmas. They finally got their wish. Yes, Virginia, there really is a . . . oh, nevermind.

(If he has any questions, Sonntag is supposed to call Gregoire's chief of staff, Cindy Zehnder. But I noticed she didn't give out Zehnder's super secret number, just the main number for the governor's receptionist. Some things are on a need to know basis.)