Audit The Legislature, Yes.  The Right Way.

To the Editor,

Massachusetts voters have full access to the Massachusetts state budget, currently $63 billion for FY26-FY27, presented every January by the Governor.  You can view what we spend our state tax money on, in detail, by going to: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/view-the-fiscal-year-2027-budget. 

The state budget is audited by outside auditors on a regular basis and by law.  These reports are also fully accessible to Massachusetts voters on that same website.     

The current controversy involving the State Auditor Diana DiZoglio and our local State Representative political campaign (Andrew “Dru” Tarr vs. Christina Delisio vs. Gil Frieden) concerns the internal budget of the legislature, i.e., the House, called the General Court in Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Senate, and its offices. 

The legislative budget for FY 2026-2027 is a total of $105 million, a very small fraction of the state budget.   

The voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in 2024 to allow the State Auditor to audit the legislature, and presumably it will get done once the arguments about the scope of such an audit are resolved.  In 2024 the State Auditor informed the state legislature that she wanted to do an audit of not only its financial records but also of the processes of how the legislature does its work; this prompted a case before the Supreme Judicial Court and is the reason for the delay. 

Because there are separation of powers principles in the state Constitution, and because the State Auditor is part of the executive branch, the one area that should be outside the scope of the audit is that of the legislature’s constitutional functions. 

In June, the House voted 124-to 28 on a bill, H5469, which defines the scope of the audit to include the legislature’s annual budgets, official audits of the House and Senate by independent firms, spending by each chamber, and financial settlements with lawmakers and employees – a financial audit.  

Dru Tarr and 123 other House members voted for the bill.  The Senate passed it as S3244 in July, by 34 to 6.  None thought it was a “no” vote for a financial audit, despite what Christine Delisio and others are saying.  Read the text of H5469 yourself on malegislative.gov/bills.    Dru Tarr explained his vote on this at https://drutarr.com/transparency-and-the-audit/. 

All three candidates agree that the State Auditor should do a financial audit of the legislature.  This bill is currently in conference committee so has not become law and might not become law.  What we would like to see is for DiZoglio to meet with the Speaker and Senate President and work out the scope so this audit can finally get done.  There are other things to deal with that are more important, and this issue has already taken far too much energy.  

Signed,

Michele Kulick

Martha Farmer

Axel Magnuson

Sandy Bodmer-Turner

Mary Minott

Manchester