* Leslie Munger defends Gov. Rauner’s veto of the Debt Transparency Act, which is supported by Comptroller Mendoza and would require monthly reports from all state agencies about how many vouchers they were sitting on…
As Gov. Bruce Rauner noted in his veto of the bill, the desire to provide more transparency about the state of our finances is a good one. As the former state comptroller, I kept a running estimate of vouchers in agencies though frequent phone calls so we could plan for payments and manage available cash.
OK, but what happens when the governor doesn’t want to get along with the comptroller? This is what happens…
To give you an idea of how ridiculous this process is, the state’s bill backlog unexpectedly grew by $1 billion one day in May when the governor’s Office of Management & Budget abruptly revealed the unpaid invoices.
* Back to Munger…
But the Debt Transparency Act, with its burdensome paperwork and overreach by the comptroller’s office into the executive branch, is not the solution.
It’s too burdensome to require agencies to keep track of their unpaid bills? C’mon.
* Munger…
Vouchers come into the state agencies continually. Paper reports are out of date almost as soon as they are issued. Our agencies are already burdened by the state’s decades-old methods for processing budgets, invoices and fund transfers, and an antiquated technology infrastructure. This has resulted in dysfunctional, unclear and paper-based systems that require manual entry of payment vouchers because our system cannot accept vouchers via email.
Any report on unpaid bills will be out of date as soon as it’s issued.
* Munger…
There is a better solution. In 2015, the state purchased the software for a new statewide enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The system, once implemented, will allow vouchers to be submitted electronically, eliminating the need for manual data entry and saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Importantly, once a voucher is entered into the system it is transparent throughout the entire process. Everyone — including the comptroller — will have visibility to all the bills held at all agencies with a click on the computer. No need for additional staff to comply with the reporting requirements. No need for burdensome monthly paperwork. Real-time data. Faster. Cheaper. Better.
Rather than doubling down on our antiquated inefficient paper-based system, Comptroller Susana Mendoza should reinstate the funding for the implementation of the ERP system and be the strong advocate for improving the accuracy, efficiency and transparency of the financial transactions in the state.
…Adding… From comments…
This is total nonsense. Just because an agency has an invoice doesn’t mean they create a voucher right away. If someone is sitting on invoices without creating a voucher the Comptroller has no idea what’s out there & that’s true even if ERP were 100% live today.
That sounds mighty fine, but this is what Comptroller Mendoza had to say about ERP in March, almost two years into this upgrade…
* If any of the 263 State’s legacy accounting systems have been retired through the ERP, our Office has not been notified. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2019.
* The ERP pilot agencies have encountered so many errors that requests for change orders will require an estimated 15,000 hours, according to information shared by program administrators with the program oversight group.
* Officials from the Rauner Administration report that $63 million, or one-quarter, of the ERP budget has been spent.
* Related…
* Mendoza: Taxpayers deserve a better look at the state’s bills
* Inside Illinois’ $16 billion backlog: What does the state owe your town?
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:08 pm:
Is there any talk of Munger running again, or is she done?
- Norseman - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:17 pm:
Munger going back to being wingman.
This looks like a good one for the mad GOP solons to vote to override.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:19 pm:
This is where Munger loses the argument…
=== As the former state comptroller, I kept a running estimate of vouchers in agencies though frequent phone calls so we could plan for payments and manage available cash===
Rich tees it up…
===OK, but what happens when the governor doesn’t want to get along with the comptroller?===
These agencies are run by the Governor’s (any governor) Administration.
The only way this makes sense is if Munger is chiding the Agencies for dumping invoices and not working in concert with the Comptroller (any Comptroller)
You can’t deal with a voucher, invoice, whatever that hasn’t been sent in, timely or not.
You’d think Munger would’ve learned, while juggling to be Rauner’s wingman, how difficult it is when agencies and other continuing appropriations and court orders how what and when a Comptroller can act upon what is given when makes a difference.
- Mod Dem - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:22 pm:
I am not an expert on this,but it seems to me that the late payment fee clock doesn’t start until 30 days prior to submission for payment to the Comptroller. This act would make all those “delayed” payments visible.
- Anon221 - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:24 pm:
Is Munger THE deputy Govenor, or A deputy governor? What exactly are the statutory duties of this appointment, anyway? Is this how she earns her $135,000 per year? Pretty expensive spokesperson. Couldn’t Hud handle this???
- Union Dues - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:29 pm:
If the agencies dont keep timely tracknof what they are spending how can they adhere to their budget’s? Isnt the amount of spending pre-approved? They have to be tracking that.
- Whatever - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:37 pm:
==Comptroller Susana Mendoza should reinstate the funding for the implementation of the ERP system ==
So Munger doesn’t even know that the Comptroller can’t make appropriations? Even school kids in Illinois know that you do it by overriding the Governor’s veto or by going to court.
- Jocko - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:40 pm:
Anon221 beat me to it. If Rauner is still looking to save the state money, I can quickly find savings of at least 138K.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:44 pm:
===But the Debt Transparency Act, with its burdensome paperwork and overreach by the comptroller’s office into the executive branch,===
As a former Comptroller, you’d think Munger would understand making lots of phone calls is burdensome too. And also, the Comptroller is part of the Executive Branch, so how can this be an overreach? Lol.
https://www2.illinois.gov/government/executive-branch
- Montrose - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:45 pm:
Let’s say ERP is actually brought online. If there is no statute mandating that the agency info is accessible to all than there is nothing to stop a Governor from limiting access to that information on the system. Sometimes you have to mandate transparency. This is one of those times.
- Demoralized - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 1:47 pm:
Whatever:
She has withheld payments. It has nothing to do with appropriations.
- zatoichi - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:02 pm:
Keeping a running estimate of vouchers in agencies though frequent phone calls is fine way to track money. The estimate of $7.5B held by agencies just came out last week. That was in addition to the $15B in bills the comptroller does have. No need for transparency.
- Sonny - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:08 pm:
DOIT is still spending, even after Bhatt went bye bye, and contracting outside consultants and accomplishing next to nothing. I haven’t heard of any DOIT layoffs or heard about the ping pong table repo man was visiting the Thompson Center even thought they got thwacked to the tune of $600 million in the budget. But please if there is something special happening there we’re missing other than billion dollar firms fleecing the state, do tell.
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:14 pm:
Talk about a waste of money, having a person call through the scores of state boards and agencies to track vouchers. Is that how she ran her office? That task would be like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, you’d finish the list and start right back at the beginning again to try to keep up to date. What’s scary is this is the person with a clear lack of innovative ideas and creativity who is supposed to deliver Amazon to Illinois.
- Get a Job!! - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:32 pm:
=Importantly, once a voucher is entered into the system it is transparent throughout the entire process. Everyone — including the comptroller — will have visibility to all the bills held at all agencies with a click on the computer. No need for additional staff to comply with the reporting requirements. No need for burdensome monthly paperwork. Real-time data. Faster. Cheaper. Better.=
This is total nonsense. Just because an agency has an invoice doesn’t mean they create a voucher right away. If someone is sitting on invoices without creating a voucher the Comptroller has no idea what’s out there & that’s true even if ERP were 100% live today.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:34 pm:
–But the Debt Transparency Act, with its burdensome paperwork and overreach by the comptroller’s office into the executive branch, is not the solution.–
Munger, the former comptroller, does not realize that the comptroller is part of the executive branch?
That explains a lot.
Given the quality of her argument here, I’d love for her to explain how that whole raid of GRF to pay the IT pinstripe patronage army went down.
That would be a laugh riot, no doubt.
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:37 pm:
Pretty scary that an ex-comptroller doesn’t even know the comptroller is part of the executive branch. I shudder to think of what branch she thinks applies.
- dbk - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:39 pm:
This doesn’t sound like it’s going well.
Assuming work on the state’s ERP software–and if it was bought off the shelf, it’ll need a lot of adjustments–is continuing, and that it’s scheduled to go live in 2019, it’s reasonable to assume it’ll actually go live a couple of years later.
The programmers could still be doing their jobs, but if they’re not getting the crucial input/feedback they need from the agencies, and if there’s not someone who understands both the programming principles and the agencies’ modus operandi and can get everybody on the same programmatic page, the start-up will be both late and most probably chaotic.
Who’s overseeing this (not in title, the actual hands-on overseeing)? Who’s (or who are) the liaison? Is there somebody from every agency assigned to liaise with the programmers?
And 2019 (or 2021) is quite a ways down the road.
What about some intervening transparency?
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:41 pm:
Munger is either oblivious of the fact she was part of the Executive which is scary in of itself… like a blissfully unaware wingman…
Or Munger absolutely knows that she was part of the Executive… but is being willfully ignorant in this case to be a dutiful wingman.
It’s one or the other.
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:41 pm:
What is going on with the Murashko scandal?
- morningstar - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 2:57 pm:
Why is Munger still here?
- Whatever - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 3:25 pm:
Demoralized ==She has withheld payments. It has nothing to do with appropriations. ==
The comptroller’s mere “withholding” of payments hasn’t stopped other contractors from proceeding. That’s why we have a backlog of bills. So just what did Munger mean be saying Mendoza should “reinstate” the funding for ERP?
- Original Rambler - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 3:38 pm:
Phone calls? Really? Wish someone would have asked her what the current backlog is for, say, IDOC.
And Get a Job is spot on.
- Silent Budgeteer - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 3:51 pm:
If you listen carefully, you can hear Ron from Bob’s Burgers singing “Wingman… Wingman… Wingman…”
- Anonymous - Friday, Oct 20, 17 @ 4:20 pm:
I have a feeling Rainer should stop bringing up ERP. Tens of millions spent with pretty much no accountability combined with spurned former staff might come back to haunt him if anyone is sitting on a story.