* 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 Paper reports are out of date almost as soon as they are issued.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Any report on unpaid bills will be out of date as soon as it’s issued.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?