Rep. Nardone: 2025 House Bill No. 5997 - House Finance (4925)

look I'm here to introduce House Bill 5997 which would um install an officer inject inspector general into the state of Rhode Island And I just want to go over the preliminaries right off the top give you an idea of what this bill does and how it how it works Um the office of inspector general shall be an independent administrative agency charged with the purpose of preventing detecting fraud waste abuse and mismanagement in the expenditures of public funds whether federal state or local and relating to any state programs and operations The investigations may also include the expenditures by non-governmental agencies of federal state and local funds Um the IG would have direct and prompt access to head to heads of any public body when necessary for any purpose pertaining to the purpose of their duties and responsibilities They would have the ability to subpoena a witness and release material evidence The office shall no later than April 1st of each year prepare a report summarizing the activities of the office for the prior calendar year They may also prepare interim reports These reports shall be forwarded to the necessary offices and shall be made available to the public The office would be established by a majority vote of the governor the general treasurer and the attorney general The inspector general would serve for a 5-year term with a two-term limit It would uh merge the auditor general office into the inspector general office to maintain it as a separate division It would also place the office of internal audits investigations at the discretion of the inspector general Um I feel that merging the office of uh merging the office of the inspector general with the office of internal audit auditor general It would uh be putting the internal office under the discretion of the IG gives the tools to so the inspector general could work with max uh maximum efficiency You know I would also like to address the cost of this office judging by what other site states spend and speaking with the president of the inspector general association and um to the inspector general general of mass Jeffrey Shapiro who's going to be testifying today I believe it could be budgeted around $1.5 million and that endement takes into consideration the size of the state as as well as the way the bill is drafted and the the cost of the other departments that would be under their jurisdiction Um you know and if we look at the governor's budget in 2026 the budget proposal includes a $1.2 million to initiate an office of program integrity which would include six new ETFs It it's essentially duplicating the implied responsibilities of the inspector general Um I would suggest that we use that budget appropriation for the inspector general office and this would uh broaden the scope of the abilities I would also add that when the office of int uh health and human services made their case for these impropriations they validated their request by outlining a formula that would see a $6 million return in recovered funds So imagine what an independent inspector general could do if uh he could look at into all government operations independently at their own discretion You know what would be the return to recovering funds the IG office could pay for itself and its ability to recover funds um with the actual tangible money it recovers and the preemptive assumed savings You know studies have shown at the federal government level the IG gets an $18 return on every dollar that's spent And this is according to the Council on Inspector General's annual report And another study by uh NASPO shows that states with an inspector general spend $2,000 less per capita on average than states that don't include an inspector general in Rhode Island You know uh Rhode Island stands about $3,000 above the average of per capita spending Um uh I also want to mention you know as someone who served on the finance committee for six years I see the comprehensive reports the uh auditor general does and the office of internal internal audit facilitates It's very impressive They do a great job Um the component I think that is lacking with those agencies and those offices is their ability to work independently They work at the discretion of the general assembly and the executive branch of state govern when it comes to government oversight I think it's safe to assume that the public would much rather have an independent government body overseeing the efficiencies of government um operations Uh I would like to give one example of why I think this inspector general could help us in just a most recent event Um it says that uh let me look at this I believe it pertains to how the inspe the inspector general may have helped us when we had the Rhode Island bridges fasco If you look at Rhode Island general law 221310 it applies to the um auditor general's role role in safeguarding computer systems Uh page 16 um it says in conjunction with the powers and duties outlined in this chapter the auditor general may conduct reviews and assessments of various government computer systems and security systems establishing a safeguard to these computer systems If l would happen to uh Rhode Island bridges it would be safe to say that I think if we have an independent general working independently he could have preemptively identified the situation sooner possibly saving us money I mean it's not a guarantee but having someone free roaming freely looking into these situations Um I would also like to mention one other thing Well I can't find the bill I must have left it up there Well anyways the auditor general also looks into legislation They will look into the legislation that we draft to see look to see if there's inefficiencies in it Um they did that in Massachusetts Uh there was a construction deal going on there and there was a bill placed The auditor general looked in it looked into that and they were able to weed out a lot of the deficiencies in that bill which saved the state a lot of money So they do look over legislation and um again I think inspector general Jeff Shapiro from Massachusetts will uh explore a little more on that for that Now the other thing I want to say I want to conclude by saying you know as a general assembly our function is to pass legislation that reflects the general will of the public You know in the most recent poll conducted by Salv Regina University it showed that Rhode Island voters overwhelmingly support in Inspector General um 70% of Democrats and a larger majority of uh Republicans and independent voters are in favor of inspector general office and that survey is in this article right here So I think it would be very beneficial for the state I've been putting this legislation now in for the last six years of my tenure It's getting exhausting So I really wish the committee would take a look serious look at this and uh move it forward and you'll hear other expert testimony going forward