April 05, 2009
1. The headline on this post says it all.
2. ..and btw, when legislators take funds away from Sonntag's voter-mandated independent audit process in order to instead "give them to auditing programs directed by the governor's office and the legislature", we are seeing bald-faced corruption on display. Thanks for posting this, Stefan. It's amazing the depths to which Gregoire and her henchpersons in the legislature will sink, in order to screw over the citizens. The stench is unbelievable.
3. In other news, the fox will now be guarding the henhouse.
4. Sonntag should run for Governor. Hell, he could probably get the nomination of BOTH parties if he really wanted.
5. Hey Michele @2....Brian Sonntag is a Democrat. He's part a parcel of the Powers that Be in Washington State. He has never released an audit to the public without first having been scrutinized and OK'ed by his masters. Yes, it's a convoluted game-play of deception to give credence to Sonntag in his pretense of working for the Tax Payer. Now, the Legislature, with approval of Christine, wants to gut his voter-mandated performance audit program. Of course, he feigns outrage but, it's all part of a hand holding game-play foisted on the Tax Payer. In Truth, Sonntag doesn't represent the Tax Payer any more than Christine and the vast majority of the so-called representatives. They're all a bunch of corrupt parasites living off the Tax Payer, stealing and spending as much as they can and rendering as little service as they can in return to the Tax Payer. What a Sad Joke!
6. world @4 - be careful what you ask for. While Sonntag is perceived as this hero in the land of liberal tax and spend, his actual savings has been trivial. Not too long ago he promised me in writing to audit King County corruption in DOT. A year after that promise, he fed me a paragraph defending the county's actions based entirely on the county's own internal investigation. That was an investigation focused on covering up massive fraud that has resulted in several hundred million dollars in infrastructure liability shifted to the taxpayers.
He's part of the machine; not working to really fix anything.
7. Hey Christine, my $5 footlong cost me $5.50 thanks to your 10% tax. You good for nothing tax raising, campaign promise breaking, turkey necked, liberal. (I apologize to any turkeys that I unintentionally hurt their feelings)
PS: I support doubling Sonntag's funding.
8. Oh... so the cure is to gut his funding and provide NO supervision of ANY kind.
Swell.
9. MJC @6 - what corruption do they have going on now at King County DOT? Please do tell!
10. Michele @ 2 - you are right on. I happen to know that there are many conservatives working in that office (some in actual positions of influence), so don't listen to Daniel. If an actual field auditor comes up with something (don't think that sonntag himself goes out and does these audits) and has solid evidence, then that issue is not going away (no matter what Daniel thinks). Private CPA firms would not do a better job since they would be looking to secure multi-year contracts for audit work and would not do anything to tick-off the folks that they are auditing for fear of losing contracts or contracting opportunities. He may be a Democrat, but there are honest Democrats out there (hard to believe - I know).
11. Your full of CRAP!....Michael H. Yeah, Brain Sonntag is the lone Warrior surrounded by the Criminal Government Gangsters of this State. The Gangsters who make their living by Ripping Off the Tax Payer. That Brian Sonntag is not part of the system at all. That he alone speaks for the Citizens. That private CPA firms are going to be more dishonest than the Government's own auditors. Yeah, Right! In the first place, you would have more than one private CPA firm doing the auditing and there would be cross auditing by other private auditors as well. This would go a long way in keeping things honest. Anybody, that comes across like you do is either a Liberal, a Government employee or both.
12. Michael H at #10, most of the times you are correct, unless it is at a city or county that is politically strong, then Mr. Sonntag's staff waters down the recommendation. If you don't believe me ask any of the finance people at the larger cities or counties in this state. My friend is on the ewxecutive team of WFOA (washington finance officers assoc) and he can list story after story of this happening. Where someone ha a potential negative audit finding and they called Mr. Sonntag directly and he pulled the finding. I can list two examples that I was told.
But, woe to you if you are a small audit 'client' because you get hammered to make up for Mr. Sonntag's uneven handling of the audit standards. Ask any of the WFOA members how Mr. Sonntag's office implemented SAS 112, while ignoring SAS 107-11
As for Mr. Sonntag's staff being conservative, why would you think them being conservative gives them a pass?