Editor,

The reality of how another report prepared by our agency personnel that sits in a drawer in Olympia adds to “transparency and accountability” and “in meeting the expectations of the people they serve” as claimed by state Auditor Troy Kelly escapes me. If the report actually mattered, the state would bear the expense of mailing a copy of it to each of our customers in my sewer district.

In addition to the annual report, the state Auditor’s Office conducts an on-site audit of our district every three years that costs our rate payers thousands of dollars. All our meetings and records are open for the public to see and the names and telephone numbers of all our commissioners, who pay the same rate as all our customers, are listed on our monthly billing. If someone wants to know why our legal expense has doubled in the past 10 years, they need only to look at the ever increasing number of regulations and requirements the state loads on our operation.

The state Auditor’s Office has some sincere people who are trying to do a good job. But it isn’t about transparency and accountability. It is about increasing the number of state employees and eventually forcing all of the employees of these small districts with one or two people to join the state employees union. I suspect the unpublished agenda is for the state to eventually run all local agencies.

If you think that is a bit extreme, please investigate how all the money in first federal stimulus package, which was nearly $1 billion that was supposed to go for “shovel-ready jobs” for public agencies, ended up in the state employee retirement pension fund. Self-righteous statements about what a great job the state Auditor is doing spending taxpayer money deserves some pushback from these little agencies.

STAN WALKER

Holmes Harbor Sewer District commissioner