A Lesson in State Government

As recently as yesterday, Gov. Strickland had been pushing the message that he "remains ready to sit down at the table with those that want to discuss budget solutions with him."

Since he has failed to do anything during his term in office that would have substantively helped prevent Ohio's current economic situation, it's understandable that he is asking for help from anyone and everyone.

One person he has consistently 'called out' has been Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor.

Yesterday, Gov. Strickland said "I'm willing to sit down and talk with anyone,[...] quite frankly, even the auditor if she wants to come in."

Back in mid-April he called her out quite explicitly by stating:

Ohioans deserve nothing less from Auditor Mary Taylor and Republican leaders in the General Assembly than an honest answer to an important question: What taxes would you increase or what services would you cut, rather than utilize the federal stimulus resources that rightfully belong to Ohio taxpayers?

Since the Governor clearly doesn't understand the duties of the Ohio Auditor of State, I decided to look it up for him myself. Here ya go:

The auditor of state shall audit all public offices as provided in this chapter. The auditor of state also may audit the accounts of private institutions, associations, boards, and corporations receiving public money for their use and may require of them annual reports in such form as the auditor of state prescribes.

If the auditor of state performs or contracts for the performance of an audit, including a special audit, of the public employees retirement system, school employees retirement system, state teachers retirement system, state highway patrol retirement system, or Ohio police and fire pension fund, the auditor of state shall make a timely report of the results of the audit to the Ohio retirement study council.

The auditor of state may audit the accounts of any provider as defined in section 5111.06 of the Revised Code.

If a public office has been audited by an agency of the United States government, the auditor of state may, if satisfied that the federal audit has been conducted according to principles and procedures not contrary to those of the auditor of state, use and adopt the federal audit and report in lieu of an audit by the auditor of state’s own office.

Within thirty days after the creation or dissolution or the winding up of the affairs of any public office, that public office shall notify the auditor of state in writing that this action has occurred.

Now if you read blogs like I read blogs, you probably just glanced over all that nonsense.

To sum it up for you: it's not the role of the Auditor of State to devise solutions for budget boondoggles.

I know it may come as a bit of a shock to Governor Strickland, but Auditor Taylor does have a responsibility to the people that elected her to office to do the job which was elected to do. It's not like the job provides a bunch of spare time so she can swing by and help you do yours.

Speaking of doing what you're elected to do, here's an important bullet from your official duties as Governor of Ohio:

Submitting biennial capital and operating budgets

Yep. What you're asking Mary Taylor to do is actually your job, Mr. Strickland. I did note it doesn't say "submitting rational and fiscally responsible budgets", so I guess we can forgive Ted on that one.

Now, in reality we know what Ted is doing. He's playing politics. Shocker.

But once again Governor Strickland's obsession with bucking responsibility and saving his own hide is paramount to the best interests of Ohio.

I only hope someone in Ohio media will call him out on it. Unfortunately, that's unlikely until the race for Governor starts heating up in a few months and Strickland's opponent makes it an issue that must be talked about.

The reality is that Ohio doesn't have time to just sit back and pray everything ends up ok. We need a leader. We need someone who has proven that he will do what is right rather than what is politically expedient.

Ohio needs John Kasich.