Legislative auditor concerned about increase in repeated findings in state agencies

by Bryan P. Sears, Maryland Matters
November 19, 2025

The auditor for the state legislature is raising concerns about an increase in the number of unresolved findings as his agency reviews government operations.

More than one-third of compliance issues identified by the Office of Legislative Audits this year were findings repeated from previous audits. About 10% of those findings were included in two or more previous audits, according to a report presented Wednesday to the Joint Audit and Evaluation Committee.

“And for perspective, OLA has not seen repeat percentages this high since just prior to 2010,” Christine Timanus, deputy auditor at the Office of Legislative Audits, told committee members.

Most agencies are audited every three to four years. The majority of those reviews are for fiscal compliance.

On average, the auditor has conducted 190 reviews of state agencies annually over the last six years.

Over that time, the number of findings has decreased.

But the office reported that during that time, the percentage of repeat findings has increased from a low of 27% in 2022 and 2023 to the current 34% reported Wednesday.

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Legislative Auditor Brian Tanen said the growing number of repeat findings is concerning.

“We do think that vacancy rates may have contributed at least in part to some of those things,” Tanen said.

An audit of the Social Services Administration released in September included a half-dozen repeat findings. Included in those were findings that the state agency failed to oversee local departments to which it has delegated authority. In other cases, children were going without medical and dental care, or investigations of allegations of abuse were not investigated in a timely manner.

Tanen said agencies are not implementing changes to address the audit findings.

“I don’t think it’s more auditing that’s necessary,” Tanen said. “I think it’s more fixing that’s necessary. We provide the recommendations. Ultimately, it’s the agencies that are responsible for putting the fixes in place. And I think what we’re finding is whether it’s because of a lack of adequate IT or human resources that those agencies oversee, controls those they’re just not doing it.”

Additionally, Tanen told the panel that at least 20% of the findings in the current year are related to delegated procurements. Tanen said the Departments of General Services and Budget and Management, and the Board of Public Works are not ensuring procurements are being conducted properly.

“And so, I think it becomes, at some point, we need to take a step back and say, these agencies that are responsible for controlling these activities, where do they stand to be accountable?” Tanen said.

“One of the things that may have to happen is when you delegate authority, sometimes you have to take the keys away from the child that’s not using the responsibilities that you’ve given them properly,” Tanen said. “And you know, if an agency is not procuring things properly or not handling the responsibilities they’ve been delegated properly, maybe we need to set an example, and someone needs to take that responsibility away and give it to somebody who can.”

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