Port: What happens when a state can’t trust its auditor?

MINOT, N.D. — North Dakota Auditor Josh Gallion has, throughout his tenure in workplace, revealed himself to be a rabidly bold politician unafraid to make use of the authority of his workplace to generate headlines for himself.

Gallion is now embroiled in a confrontation with different state officers. He makes use of Trumpian bluster to inveigh in opposition to his critics,

accusing them of masking up corruption and soiled offers

by taking after his workplace.

When a politician behaves this manner, it is often as a result of they wish to distract the general public from one thing else. On this occasion, Gallion would really like you to disregard the outrageously self-serving method he is carried out himself in workplace.

One living proof is the mess Gallion created on the Commerce Division. In 2019 Gallion’s workplace completed a evaluation of the Commerce Division by suggesting {that a} crime had occurred round a procurement. Gallion needed to refer this alleged crime to legislation enforcement for investigation. When he requested the Legislature’s audit oversight committee for permission, as they legislation requires, they denied him.

Gallion, the glory hound, then determined to do an end-run across the Legislature, utilizing a tortured interpretation of statute about procurement playing cards — no such playing cards had been in use by the Commerce Division on this matter — to justify a referral of the matter to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace.

It was an outrageous abuse of energy. It resulted in a number of state staff, together with Michelle Kommer, the commerce commissioner on the time, for less than a tiny a part of the audit, retaining authorized counsel at their very own expense.

On the finish of this Gallion-manufactured circus, no prison exercise was discovered. What a waste of time and tax {dollars}.

In testimony to lawmakers in 2021

, Kommer described this course of she and her colleagues had been put by as “un-American,” and Gallion as an individual with “unbridled political ambition with a touch of poor character.”

Had this been the one time Gallion acted on this trend, we’d chalk it as much as human error, however Gallion has made a behavior of this form of factor.

In 2019 his workplace

accused the state librarian of prison wrong-doing

over a minor clerical error. There was nothing to the declare.

Simply final 12 months, Gallion’s workplace blindsided the town of Parshall with an audit, notifying the information media concerning the evaluation earlier than making any official contact with metropolis leaders about it.

Per the town’s testimony to lawmakers

, Gallion’s individuals spent exactly sooner or later onsite in Parshall, with the remainder of the knowledge obtained by electronic mail. He charged the town, residence to only 250 individuals, practically $40,000 for the evaluation,

which in the end discovered nothing of significance

.

The auditor’s job is a crucial one. The purpose of that workplace is to flag issues to allow them to be fastened and enhance the operation of our authorities. That is not been Gallion’s method. He brutalizes these he audits with exaggerated claims about sensationalized findings, pushing them to the information media typically earlier than he even bothers to inform these he is audited about them.

That is an issue for the Legislature to repair, and repair it they have to, regardless of Gallion’s specious caterwauling.