Republican state auditor David Yost is instituting a flat hourly rate for the audits conducted by his office for schools and communities. Yost says the rate of $41 an hour standardizes the hourly rates that the office used to charge – which ranged from $24 an hour for an intern to as much as $64 an hour for more senior auditors.
“Up till now, we’ve had what I call ‘rate roulette’, which means that you got – whoever walked in the door, you paid their salary.”
Yost says this change sets a uniform rate across the state that will give government entities some predictability year over year. But the rate change could mean communities and schools could pay a total of a little more than $5 million more for their audits, and some will pay bigger tabs than others. Lobbying groups that represent townships and school districts have expressed anger at the change, which comes after a 30% cut in the local government fund in the budget and cuts to education spending. So one might expect the group that represents the state’s cities, villages and other municipalities would be furious. Sue Cave is the executive director of the Ohio Municipal League.
“The reaction of our members ranged from not much of a comment all the way up to the comment that their funds had been cut rather dramatically by the state of Ohio and now here was a new mandate being imposed upon them with an increase in their fee.”
And Yost says his office’s rates are lower than those charged by private auditors, which are often used by government entities as well. But Cave says some municipalities she deals with are worried about how they’ll pay for the rate change.
Yost notes that some entities have had trouble paying the tabs of the auditors anyway – he says his office has several outstanding bills in its accounts receivable department.
“The number of audits compared to the body of our work is not especially large, but in this day and age of limited resources if we can find a million dollars out of our receivables, that’s money that’s is going to help us keep costs down for the locals.”
Yost says most of those who owe his office are charter schools and smaller governments that have been struggling recently.