Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sandoval pushes for inspector general office to tackle government waste

Sun Coverage

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval wants to create the Office of Inspector General to ferret out “waste, fraud and abuse” in state government.

Heidi Gansert, chief of staff for Sandoval, said the governor wants a person who goes farther than just looking at the books, as auditors do.

But there were a number questions raised during a Monday hearing of the Senate Committee on Government Affairs.

Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, suggested the office, if created, would be “chasing pennies.” He said Nevada has the smallest per-capita state government in the nation, and there are currently no big projects in the works as in other states.

But Gansert and Sen. Greg Brower, R-Reno, said these offices in the federal government and in other states more than pay for themselves.

Gansert said the office would initially have two employees and the inspector general would work closely with the auditor in the state Department of Administration.

Keith Monroe, assistant attorney general, told the committee the bill “is well intentioned” but his office does these tasks already and “I think we do a pretty good job.”

Monroe said he “gets a little nervous” when there are no qualifications listed in the bill for the proposed inspector general. When there are problems discovered, the attorney general’s office puts out a trained investigator, he said.

Gansert said there was probably fraud in the state's giant Medicaid program, but Schneider said Medicaid has 25 investigators.

Brower said an inspector general would increase efficiency in government. He said the Internal Audit Division in the Department of Administration is limited in what it does, the audit division in the Legislative Counsel Bureau doesn't perform any investigation, the attorney general’s office focuses on criminal activity and the Ethics Commission has narrow jurisdiction.

Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas and chairman of the committee, suggested there could be “peer review” where directors in other agencies could examine the workings of another department. He said the proposed inspector general “would be another J. Edgar Hoover,” referring to the late FBI director.

But Brower said the inspector general would be a “watchdog” over the executive branch of government and would not detract from the audits.

Sandoval’s proposal gained support from the Independent American Party, the Eagle Forum and Nevada Senior Advocates.

The committee did not take action on the bill.

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