Brady served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1993 to 2000 and is now finishing his third term in the Illinois Senate while campaigning for governor on a platform of financial responsibility and building a better business atmosphere in Illinois. He has promised very deep cuts in state spending if he wins, planning to cut 10 percent immediately, then order a “forensic” audit of state spending that would examine state contracts, agencies and programs to identify waste, fraud and abuse. “Forensic” usually refers to criminal investigations.

“We’re going to start by cutting spending by a dime on every dollar,” Brady says, “and then we’re going to order a forensic audit to drill down to the basic needs and highest priorities of the people of Illinois: protecting public safety and working with the remaining resources we have to meet the highest priorities of the citizens of this state.”

But Auditor General Bill Holland, whose office would conduct the proposed forensic audit under a resolution Brady cosponsored earlier this legislative session, says the idea isn’t as simple as it sounds. The resolution calls for an audit of the last nine years of state business, contracts and programs, but Holland points out that the state processes about 15 million checks each year, for a total of 135 million checks to be potentially examined. That’s in addition to around half a million state contracts and numerous government programs. A normal audit of a single agency takes about nine months, Holland notes, and that only requires examining a sample of each agency’s contracts, expenditures and practices.

Holland says a forensic audit means the “application of accounting methods to tracking and collecting forensic evidence, usually for the investigation and prosecution of a criminal act.”

“That presupposes that a criminal act took place,” he says. “It would be a very deep, very thorough audit …. It would take several years and cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Not only would it be a massive and costly undertaking, Holland notes, but it would likely cause problems with the annual financial and compliance audits of state agencies his office already performs.

“It would drive the very people I have to work with on financial and compliance audits probably to be less cooperative because at the same time I would be doing an aggressive forensic audit,” he says. “Frankly, the moment you start getting into something that might not even prove a criminal act but might raise a lot of questions, those people are probably going to lawyer up, and it will take forever…. It sounds like a good idea, but people should really sit down and make sure they know what they’re calling for.”

When asked about the lengthy and costly nature of a potential forensic audit, Brady simply reiterates his intent to seek out spending cuts.

“We’ll start with a dime on every dollar,” he says. “We realize, given the crisis Gov. Quinn has put us in, there’s going to have to be more, which is why we know we need the audit to evaluate where he’s been spending money – waste, fraud, abuse. There are going to be some difficult decisions that are going to have to be made, working with the legislature. But it’s got to be a balanced budget. We’ve got to re-right the ship, redefine Illinois government within the means we have available.”

Brady has called for cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, where he says his proposed forensic audit would reveal fraud, mismanagement and abuse. He also favors switching many Medicaid patients to a managed care system – the type currently administered by many Health Management Organizations (HMOs) – to control the cost of health care.

Dr. Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, says Brady’s cuts would likely have a deeply negative impact on Springfield’s economy. Redfield has studied state government since 1979, after working for the legislature for four years.

“If we’re going to talk 10 percent, we’re taking a lot of stuff of the table,” Redfield says.

“You’re going to have to significantly reduce headcount in state agencies and programs, and since so much of state government is located in Springfield, it’s definitely going to have a major impact. In order to get that overall savings without new revenue, you’re going to end up with a reduction in the number of people taking home paychecks in Sangamon County.”

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