Bark Over Bite?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 24, 2000 | by Sean Paige

Brookings Institution scholar Paul Light is recognized by some as the new paradigm's most eloquent champion. "Overall, I think the IGs are actually doing a better job today than they were doing 10 years ago," Light tells Insight. "They are focusing much more heavily on prevention rather than after-the-fact fraud hunts." That does not mean that they are missing fraud, says Light. It means that they're catching fraud before it occurs.

The new approach may not make for good headlines or exciting congressional hearings, but Light argues that "prevention really is, in the long haul, the best way to reduce the vulnerability of government to fraud, waste and abuse." He adds: "The reinventors really wanted the IGs to back down a little bit and spend less time doing what they identified as 'gotcha' auditing."

Others, however, worry that by playing a greater role in management and policy decisions, as the new vision statement seems to encourage, the IGs risk becoming just another rubber stamp for political appointees.

The State Department's Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers is one IG that believes she can successfully wear both hats, serving as independent watchdog and in-house management consultant. "Our goals are the goals of the department; we want the very same things as the State Department wants," she said in a recent interview. "But at the same time we want to see the most effective and efficient use of resources being made to see that that mission is achieved."

Despite of a tide that seems to be turning in favor of soft-liners, voices of dissent occasionally leak out from the agencies themselves. "The Clinton/Gore NPR set a new direction for the IG community; not only was the junk-yard-dog approach a relic of the past, now the NPR sought to make us a close integral part of the agency management team by having us be more cooperative and collaborative with the agency," according to a top IG staffer in a major agency, who requested anonymity. "I feel that many in the IG community followed this path too far and to the point that independence, which is required by statute and professional standards, was sacrificed in an effort to satisfy NPR and agency demands for closeness.

"Our goal seems to have moved toward `Don't upset the agency' and, if you look at the results we are putting out, we are less and less in the mode of doing things that might upset the agency." The source continues: "I feel this path is not consistent with the IG act and professional standards that require our independence and does an injustice to our other primary customers -- Congress and the taxpay-ers."

As evidence of too much coziness, the source says some fellow IG staffers felt pressured to give the parent agency a "clean opinion" on a recent annual financial statement, though they felt the agency didn't deserve it. Productivity has fallen off, as has the number of recommendations it makes.

One reason for that lost productivity, according to this source, is the NPR itself, which has led to a marked increase in the number of feel-good activities and "soft training," diverting time and energy away from the real work that needs to be done.