Fishman Calls Bump “Enabler”, Rips Republican Brady

Only 2 candidates have currently qualified to be on the ballot in the Auditor’s race in Massachusetts. The 8 year incumbent, Democrat Suzanne Bump and Libertarian Dan Fishman have been certified by the Secretary of State ahead of the May 8th deadline for signatures for major parties being turned in.

With the sadly predictable news that 19 quasi-state agencies have been ignoring the law and not reporting their payrolls that are funded by taxpayers of the commonwealth, the question becomes once again, where were the audits that should have revealed this?

The sad truth is that the current Auditor is enabling this sort of “government gone wild” spending by refusing to do complete audits of state agencies.  One of the agencies, the Steamship Authority actually WAS Audited by the Auditor in 2017.  So you think the Auditor’s office might have noticed that the Steamship Authority, which has a payroll over $30 million annually, has never published a payroll record.

Don’t take my word for it!  Read what the Boston Globe reported.

Why did the Auditor not notice this?  Because the Audit focused on only 2 objectives, rather than a complete forensic audit.  The audit listed 2 questions they were investigating:

“1)  Is the Steamship Authority recording the collection, accounting and reporting of its properly parking-lot administering revenue?

2)  Is the Steamship Authority properly administering the collection, accounting, recording, and reporting of its passenger revenue?”

And according to the Auditor’s report, the Steamship Authority passed with flying colors!

These are the sort of measures taken by the current auditor (who was directly called out by the Boston Globe in 2014 for not doing her job) that are enabling people to cheat the system.  By not doing comprehensive audits, Ms. Bump is enabling agencies in their addiction to spending taxpayer money needlessly.  Partisan oversight apparently includes turning a blind eye at times.

When elected Auditor I won’t look away because an agency has a Republican or Democratic based group of employees.  I won’t not look at the available data when it’s politically inconvenient.  I will be impartial.

This puts me in DIRECT opposition to the Republican candidate for Auditor, who has not been certified on the ballot yet and may not get enough signatures to qualify.  “Let’s face it, Massachusetts has in Charlie Baker the Tom Brady of governors. He needs a fearless slot receiver like me, who won’t back down,” possible Auditor candidate Helen Brady said recently. “He needs a team player who will tackle tough issues and help him deliver a better state government for all of us.”

“Disgusting.”  Fishman said in response to Brady’s comment.  “The Auditor is the referee of how agencies in the Commonwealth spend money.  The referee shouldn’t be wearing the jersey of one of the two teams.  The implication that the Auditor’s office should be used as a partisan weapon is the WORST of the political tribalism that grips the Commonwealth, and should be rejected by ALL voters in the Commonwealth, regardless of party.”