 Good evening, and I welcome the television's continuing coverage of election 2022. November 8th is election day. I think that the polls in effect are open. You could be voting in your town if you'd like to be. So don't forget to go right down to your city or town hall if you'd like to get a ballot or don't forget to come and vote on the 8th of November in person. So tonight we are talking to two candidates for the auditor of accounts. We have the incumbent Doug Hoffer, who's running as a Democrat. Is that correct? A DP, a DP, a Democrat Progressive, and we have Rick Morton, Richard Rick Morton, who's running as a Republican. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm going to remind our callers if you have any questions for our candidates, feel free, 862-3966. I'd like you to direct the question to both so they have the opportunity to answer. Rick Morton, why don't we start with you. Please tell us why you're running for auditor of accounts and what qualifies you for the position. Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to be with you this evening. The reason I'm running for auditor is because it really lines up very well with the previous career that I had. I'm retired from local banking here and I was the recipient of audits as the compliance officer of the local bank and one of the two most highly regulated fields in the country is healthcare and then secondly is banking. So we had to respond to 72 potential regulations that were applied to banking world and we had to interact with the bank agencies and handle all of the regulatory questions that they were asking us. It seemed as though since I was fairly accomplished at that that it would be a natural fit for me to to sit in the other seat rather than to be the recipient of the audit to be the originator or at least the guide behind the audits that were taking place. I felt as it was a good a good fit and it led me to volunteer for this role. And did you want to say something about why you're running as a Republican? Sure. I'm the chair of the Brattleboro Republican Committee and also the chair of the Wendell County Republican Committee. I'm on the state committee so I guess you'd have to say that would be a good reason for me to be running as a Republican. Yes it would. Well thank you so much Rick Morton. All right Doug Hoffer you're an incumbent tell us why you're running for re-election and what qualifies you? Well I've enjoyed serving as state auditor for just about the last 10 years. I work with a great group of people. I'm honored to promote transparency and accountability in state government. I still enjoy the work after all this time and I'd like to go again. All right anything to add why you're running as a DP? I always have. I grew up in a house that was Democratic in the 50s. We supported Adley Stevenson. Remember when everybody said we like Ike but we didn't. Okay well thank you. So let's get on to our questions and I'm going to have you answer the first one. What are the top priorities for the auditor's office? And let's just go to top priorities. Sure. Well they will remain unchanged for me at any rate and it's basically three things. One we're looking for opportunities to improve the delivery of services, opportunities to increase the cost effectiveness of state government as a business, the nuts and bolts and also you know trying very hard to determine the extent to which programs funded by taxpayers are achieving the goals of the legislature. And it's not always easy work but it's fun. That's my background. All right well thank you so much. And Rick Morton tell us what your priorities are. The outline that's just been given by Doug is a good start and I feel that as an auditor it's a political position you elected every two years. And I think the people who put this in the Constitution were wise to realize that it is a political role. It's not just going to be a bureaucrat who's going to sit there for a 10, 20 year career well 20 or 30 year career. It's somebody who's going to represent various points of view. And I think that at this point after a certain period of time it's time for a change. In the banking world we would have a consultant come in and assist us preparing for our audits. But every so often we would change who that consultant was because we needed a different pair of eyes assisting us and guiding us through the process. And I think that's also a wise approach for the voters in Vermont. After a good period of time even if there's no difficulties it's a good idea to have a new point of view a different point of view different set of eyes. And I want to bring that to the state of Vermont. So yeah well the question I have for you is do you think you've been doing this job for too long? If I did I'd leave. Well I understand but I mean you know I mean Rick has a point that you bring in new and fresh out. That's up to the voters in my view we're doing better work than we did yesterday and the day before that it's just getting better. But I do have a quick comment I'm glad he raised the point about the election of a state auditor. The auditor has to be both objective and independent. And if a governor or legislature were to appoint a state auditor that would present problems for independence. And while I try to work with the administration and with the legislature I work for taxpayers not those guys. Okay I understand. Well let me ask you this question let's just start. The auditing of of I mean health care is the biggest expense I think in our budget right. And there have been a variety of reviews of what's been going on with auditing. We actually have a question here. The Supreme Court ruled against the current auditor's request to review one care employee payroll information. Do you see this as a sign of a political divide or measured ruling of the law? And how would you as auditor impact reviewer respond to the health care reform well health care expenses on part of the state? Rick why don't you go ahead with that? I feel that the decision that was made was made based on the law. I don't want to question that. My attitude towards the audit process is that we're actually a partner and a collaborator with the target entity. We're not it's not adversarial. It's coming alongside to assist and to enhance the work that they're doing. We're of course going to review for efficiency effectiveness cost effectiveness. We're going to do that. We're also looking at how we can benefit the voters as the taxpayers for the state of Vermont. And I want to do that as a kind of a partner. Although the auditor comes in looking over the shoulder of the entity that we're looking at. And can you say about talk about health care as a giant expenditure? Where would you what kind of audit investigations would you initiate? Well I would be a new person in the block so to speak. So as such one of my first priorities is to just get the sense of the lay of the land. There'll be a short learning curve for me of course as someone who's new to the office. And I believe that what we would need to do is review all the potential audits that could be done by the auditor at all the different levels. That's a very massive list of potential audits. I'd be looking for gaps that might have not been addressed. The performance audits are limited in terms of the staffing. There's 11 staff. The last I heard there are only 10 filling those roles. So we would want to look at the health care field yes but we don't want to look at the big picture the broad picture and fill in the gaps if we found any needed to be addressed. So Doug tell us a little bit about your first the approach that your office has taken on looking at health care expenditures and then this particular case and its outcome. Sure we've done probably half a dozen reports on health care during my tenure. I think it's unquestionably the most important issue in the state. It's 20 percent of the state's economy and it's run largely by a very small group of people who run the hospitals. And the Green Mountain Care Board has responsibility for approving their budgets and a lot of and insurance rates as well. And I think the data shows clearly that they have not met their obligation to control costs for the people of this state and businesses. Some of our reports included the failure in this state to have a health care price transparency. It's the only major decision in your life that you'll make that you have no idea what it's going to cost before it's done which is outrageous. We also have looked at costs and affordability through the work of the Green Mountain Care Board and they haven't met their obligation in my view. We recently did a really interesting job on the possibility of the state which as an employer spends a great deal of money on health care. You hear a lot of talk for example about the pensions in state government over a hundred million dollars a year. Health care is in the same league. It's about 115. But there's no discussion about how can we control costs for the state. We made a proposal based on what's been going on out west. It's interesting stuff. It's fascinating. It has to be done and as long as I'm in this job it's going to be right up front for me. A real quick thought. We do have 11 now Rick. Thank you. We have hired and filled that last position. And then can you can you talk about the Supreme Court case? Is that what you were just... I don't I don't want to speculate about their motivations for the decision made but I think they got it wrong. And I've already talked to a number of legislators. We're going to try to correct the problem. I mean it's very important to understand it's not just about health care or one care. What they said is the state auditor is not an agent of the state for purposes of obtaining records of that nature from third party contractors. What that means effectively is that probably a billion or a billion and a half dollars of work done on behalf of the state by contractors is not subject to audit. Think about it. Rick, what's your view on that question? I tend to agree. Yeah. Do you have any follow-ups for Doug on the kinds of assessments that his office has done over the past several years on the health care field? Any observations or questions? I'm not privy to the details of those audits. And so we would of course take a look at the audit history of the state of Vermont in the last biennium. And just as a just to get a sense of orientation of where we have been and where we might need to go. But we wouldn't do that adversarily. We would do that just as for informational purposes. So Doug, talk about education and the kinds of investigations the auditor's office has done with education. Do you see that as an important role? It's another giant expense. It's huge. On the other hand, the way the question was posed in the draft that you guys sent us, it sounded like they were interested in a policy debate. And of course, we're not a policy shop. We inform that discourse with information and audits. But we have done two jobs related to education in this state directly related. One was the question of the extent to which private schools are subject to the same statutes and rules with regard to teachers and hiring and students and treatment and misconduct and all that stuff as public schools and they're not. And I had no experience in that. It was kind of an interesting learning experience for me. And the other is what's happening as a trend with the number of students tuitioning out. I think everybody knows about tuitioning in Vermont and how many of those are going to private schools and whether that's rising or declining and the cost of that. It's a considerable amount. It's like $100 million a year, which is obviously less than 10% of the cost of education, but it's still $100 million a year. So again, we can't weigh in necessarily on the best way to finance education because that's a policy decision. But I will say I wish there was more conversation and discourse about the quality of education and not just the cost. And what the money's buying in fact. So Rick, understanding this question may not be completely on target, but where do you see the opportunities to look into education as an expenditure as an auditor? Actually, it's a good subject. A good question I'd like to address. I think at the federal level, if you think there, the forgiveness of student loans is a big issue that the Biden administration has sort of put out there for this election season, perhaps for electoral purposes. But it raises the question that the educational institutions turn around and they take this help that is offered to the students to pay their loans and they jack up prices. They jack up their tuition and their other rates. And so this actually becomes a support for the educational monopoly, not monopoly in a sense, but the whole industry. And that's in the big picture, in the smaller picture of just the state of Vermont. I think the issue may still be valid. And I would like to look at the runaway expenses that students incur when they go to school in Vermont at the different institutions we have. I think that's a good subject for review. And I think it's important for the voters and the taxpayers to have confidence that the schools are being run efficiently and effectively, cost-effectively. I just want to remind our viewers, if you have any questions for the candidates for auditor of accounts, we're speaking with Rick Morton who's running as a Republican and Doug Hoffer who's running as a DP, Democrat, progressive. And our number is 862-3966. We would love to hear from you. So Rick, why don't we go to the COVID funding question? The auditor's office has investigated how COVID resources have been distributed in the state, millions and millions of dollars. How is this important? And what do you think are some of the takeaways from those investigations? And are there areas that you think need to be investigated which have not yet? It is important. It's a huge segment of resources for the state of Vermont. I think that those resources have not all been employed. There may be still some that have not been allocated. I think that would be an important area to look at. I think that the residents here would want to have a good solid report of how those COVID resources were actually used. Were they used really for COVID related expenses or were they dispersed in some other fashion? What controls were in place? What documentation for those controls? And I think that would be appropriate for numerous audits, not just a single audit. So thank you so much, Rick. So Doug, tell us what are the takeaways on the COVID investigations and what's left to do? You could devote all of the resources in my office to this subject for the next five years and we couldn't cover it all. But having said that, we did two audits, one in healthcare and one in economic development. The agency of commerce, along with the tax department for a piece we didn't audit, was charged with distributing about $130 million in economic recovery grants. And much of it was spent spot on. I mean, there are a lot of businesses that had to shut down the executive order and so forth. But a lot of that programmatic money was created and the programs designed on the run. The legislature was feeling pressed, understandably. The agency wanted to help. So there were some problems that we uncovered in the design of the program and also its administration. And in the end, we found millions of dollars that went to the wrong people or more money went to people who shouldn't have gotten that much or any for that matter. It's not about corruption. It's nothing like that. It's just about the agency's decision in the number of places. The healthcare one was similar in some ways. The design was appropriate, but the administration was a little mixed. They also were in a rush. As you can imagine, everybody felt like these are first responders. These are folks who need to be engaged and resourced immediately. And most of that was fine, but we also found some problems there. As you know, there was another tranche of money coming in right now. The governor kind of forced the legislature to give him money for some programs that had been at issue. And it's about 60 million on the economic development side, which is where I'm focused a lot of the time. I did a lot of that in my role before becoming an auditor. So we fully intend to get back into the subject and spend some time on it. Are you thinking and looking at all of the broadband dollars? That's funny to say that. Thank you. This was not arranged beforehand, but in fact, we just initiated an investigation, not a gagus audit on this subject today, in fact. And it's fascinating stuff. And I don't have any background here. I hope to learn a lot. So, yes, we are doing that. Have you thought about that the broadband funds is an area that you would investigate given the scope of it and given, well, just the sheer scope of those dollars. It certainly is a prime target. The reason is because if you travel throughout Vermont, you're going to have gaps and drops services. It happens all the time. Even if you have a satellite service, you have those problems if you're in your car. So, yes, I think the residents of Vermont are extremely interested in getting this issue resolved. They've been talked, it's been addressed by politicians over the course of decades. It has not been resolved. And it's a ripe target for continued review. And I think that would be certainly appropriate to consider under the broad list of things we could do. That's one thing we should do. So, Rick, do you think that the auditor's office itself should be subject to review? It's interesting you should say that because in a way, the auditor acts towards government as the IRS acts towards the citizen. Now, with the IRS and the citizen, it's somewhat adversarial. It shouldn't be that way, but it sometimes is. I look at it differently. I think the auditor is looking over the shoulder of government at large. And that's in a sense acting as an agent of the voter or the taxpayer. And that's the appropriate role. Should the auditor itself be audited? There's certainly a place for that. I think that that's an interesting concept. I'm not sure Doug may be able to fill us in how that works. If it does, I'd be open to that process. But who would do it exactly? Would it be an agency, an agent of the legislature, committee? How would that work? But I think, in principle, that there probably should be some of that accountability. And in a sense, what you do when you have an election is you do precisely that. You bring in a new pair of eyes, a new head, a leader, and you actually do that many of the audit department itself. Thanks so much. Doug Hoffer, do you think there should be oversight of the auditor's office? I most assuredly do. And I can tell you how it's done. Tell us. There is something called a peer review. And the National State Auditors Association selects a group of auditors from all over the country. And every state does this. It's required to do this. And every three years they come to your office or the last time was remote. And review your work to see if it conforms to generally accepted government auditing standards. Gagas, which is an odd word. But anyway, that's part of it. And we always pass with flying colors. It's important. Everybody takes it very seriously in my office for sure. Second, we evaluate our own performance, which I wish more state entities would do. It's difficult for us. We don't operate a program, per se. So we have to think of interesting ways to do it. And one obvious one is what we call recommendation follow-up. If I audit your organization and we have eight recommendations a year later and then three years out, we come back to you. We don't just ask you, did you do it? We want documentation. Did you implement our recommendations or not? And you may have reasons why you couldn't. No resources or whatever. Or you don't like us. Who knows. But yes, we look at our own performance furthermore. Periodically, when the legislature asks or when I have the time, I try to look at how much money has been identified as a potential cost saving, avoid cost overruns. That sort of thing. And it's a lot of money. So yeah, we do the best we can. All right. Well, this is the moment where you get to ask each other questions. So Rick, do you have a question for Doug Hoffer? Do you feel as though the legislature and the executive branch have sufficiently funded the audit function? Or do you feel that there's limitations there that make it difficult for you to really perform the job? Well, we do the best we can with what we have. It's an $8 billion annual budget. And as you said, we have 11 auditors and another investigator. So I would argue it's not enough. Having said that, I think we've done a good job with the resources we have and have added value in a number of ways. What I like twice as many staff, you bet. I once asked for more resources and was fortunate to be told, yes, we can do that for you. The legislature a number of years ago asked us or told us to audit all of the TIF towns, tax increment financing towns, three times in their life cycle. And they weren't thinking at all, because what that has done is require that three people in my office, including my chief auditor, who's the most experienced and knowledgeable about this, do nothing effectively but TIF work. So I went to the legislature, you know, in the budget adjustment cycle in January, I said, look, you guys have given, I raised my hand and smiled and said, it's my first unfunded mandate. They told us to do this work, but didn't give us any extra resources. I said, we can do it with what we have, but there's an opportunity cost. Every time we do a TIF audit, we're not doing something else. So to answer your question, I'd love more resources. Do you have a question for Rick? Not really. I'm happy to meet you and good luck. Okay. So let me ask you about criminal justice reform. And then I'll start with you. What do you see of the role of the state auditor in addressing public safety and criminal justice reform? Looking at that issue and its expenditures, in what way do you address and meet needs on these issues? Another well-timed question. We just completed and released a report, an audit of certain aspects of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. And these are the folks who are responsible for training incoming uniformed police. There's required training and they do it at the police academy. And then subsequently there are annual in-service trainings that are required by statute and rule. And the question was, how well are they doing it? And how is the record keeping? And can they answer the, because they're all over the state. They're in small towns. There are the sheriffs. There are state police. They're everywhere. There's a lot of them. And as it turned out, the answer is they weren't doing it very well or they weren't recording it very well. And there's some question about the validity of some of the materials that were submitted to them. The good news is that there is a new director who's only been there a year and a half, maybe two years, who is really, was really excited genuinely when we came in and said, we're going to do this. She said, great. You can tell me all the areas where I can improve, which is what you want to hear. So that was good. The other is, about four or five years ago, I just got curious reading the budget one summer day. That's the kind of guy I am. And I was curious about the amount we spend in total on public safety. Everything except fire. And it was a staggering, for one year, state and local in Vermont, a staggering $574 million in a state with 630,000 people, with crime going down at that time. And I was blown away. So I said, let's share this with legislators in the hopes of it catalyzing a conversation about, do you think if you started with an empty blank slate? Yeah. Would it look like this? And they all laughed and said, of course not. But they don't take the time to go to 25,000 feet and say, how could we do it better and less expensively, eliminate redundancies and so forth. Thank you. Rick, where would you look in terms of the criminal justice expenditures in the state and policies and if they were being enacted properly? Where would you investigate? Well, let me address it this way. The implication of the question is that criminal justice reform, it sort of ties into some of the political discussions that are taking place in this country about defunding the police and so forth. I'm not a fan of that. But I want to take the opportunity to just say that even though I might not be a fan of criminal justice, of defunding the police, I should say, I can still feel as though I have the integrity to conduct audits of legislative initiatives, which lead in that direction. And I want to just assure the voters of Vermont that though I may have a particular point of view from my party affiliation that does not color the outcome of the work that I would do. And I believe that the full panoply of the types of expenditures need to be reviewed. And I would target them strategically. Thank you so much. Do you want to move into closing statements? Would you like to make your closing statement, Rick Morton? Thank you very much. The office of auditor is functioning, it's staffed, it's budgeted. Do we need a change? Maybe we don't. But sometimes it's a good idea for the voters to offer a change anyway, because a new look, a review, can be healthy for the institution as a whole. And so I'm offering myself, because of my background in banking, and I want to just put that before the voters and say there may be an opportunity here for you to have that review take place this year. And I again offer myself for that role. Thank you so much, Rick Morton. Doug Hoffer, closing comments. I'll just say again, I enjoy the work. I've learned a lot in 10 years. We have a great crew. I'd like another opportunity. Let me say one other thing unrelated to that. The last question on this list that you sent us is fascinating. It refers to language access. And I'll be honest and say that we talked about this a couple of years ago in the office and just didn't get back to it. And I'm so glad that I saw it in this question, because I've already discussed with my executive assistant to get me some information about how we can deal with that. So I appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Very good. Any other? That's it. We're done. All right. Well, I want to thank you both. Rick Richard Morton, who's running from Brattleboro as candidate, Republican candidate for auditor of accounts. And Doug Hoffer, who's running from Burlington as the incumbent, Democrat and Republican, Democrat and progressive candidate. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you very much for joining us. Great to see you. Thanks. I'm glad we could save you the trip. It's just a pleasure to see you. And thanks, everyone, for watching. And please stay tuned here to 10 meeting television's continuing coverage of election 2022. And don't forget, 7 30 on the 8th of November, Tuesday, our live election results. Thanks for watching. Thank you. Thanks, Rick. Thank you. Thank you, Doug.