Some more on the DCEO Audit

Once again Bill Holland gets himself taken off Gov. Blagojevich's Christmas card list.

This time it's an audit of DCEO...(summary here, full audit here)

It would appear that when DCEO sites job numbers, it is based off of projected jobs created/retained instead of actual jobs created/retained (why state reality when you can state projections)

They also changed it's performance measurement methodology to include employees that received training in it's reported job creation and retention numbers.

Finally "For 8 out of 10 jobs performance measures in our sample, documentation did not agree with the amount reported"

Also from the audit summary

"Most of DCEO's other reported performance measures we reviewed did not agree with the underlying documentation's; 73 percent (57 of 78) of the figures we tested did not agree."

So the questions that I see coming out of the audit (and might be fun for someone to ask at a hearing).

Why did DCEO feel the need to change it's reporting methodology to include workers trained as part of the job retention/created numbers?

Did this change have anything to do with the fact that the numbers appear from the audit to have gone down during part of the current administrations term?

Who suggested the change in methodology?

Did the change have anything to do with the fact that the old methodology showed a 60,000 jobs created/retained in FY 01 and about 30,000 in FY 2003?

What steps is DCEO taking to address the issues related to documentation of performance figures?

Since DCEO has felt it appropriate to report projections instead of actual numbers has DCEO taken any steps to examine the accuracy of their projection methodology, if so what has DCEO learned from the examination of their methodology?

If DCEO has not undertaken any activities to evaluate the projection methodology, why not?

A lot of these questions are related to the questions that HR 671 passed on 5-30-2004 wanted addressed.

On page v of the summary it points out that the Illinois Coal Development Board, chaired by the Director of DCEO, was not seated by the DCEO director and has not met to provide advice on expenditures. If this is correct than who recommended that the state spend $15 million on coal development projects since it would appear that group that is supposed to make recommendations on these sort of expenditures isn't or a least wasn't seated. (Read the press release the money did come from DCEO).
Just asking

OneMan