Firestone Proposal to Audit Assembly Clears One Hurdle

In what he termed a significant victory, Assemblyman Brooks Firestone won committee approval Monday for a groundbreaking effort to step up financial scrutiny of the state Assembly.

After debate that broke pretty much along party lines, Firestone (R-Los Olivos) won a nod from the Assembly Rules Committee for a resolution forcing the Assembly to undergo performance audits.

State legislators who crafted the 1993 law requiring state government entities to undergo such audits had specifically exempted the Legislature.

The omission did not sit well with Firestone, a freshman legislator elected in November to fill the 35th District seat of former Democratic Assemblyman Jack O’Connell, who moved over to the state Senate. Firestone, who operates a cattle ranch and vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, campaigned on his being able to bring an outsider’s business sense to the Capitol.

“This is good management. It’s good government,” an elated Firestone said after the 6-4 vote in favor of sending the measure to the Assembly floor for a full vote. “This is why the voters sent me up here--a character like me who’s a businessman from outside the political process.”

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Currently, the Assembly conducts bare-bones financial audits to check the accuracy of its accounting records and documents. But a broader review is needed, Firestone said, and a performance audit--which by definition is more rigorous--would hold up a magnifying glass to the practices and expenditures of the Assembly.

In a memo to his colleagues, Firestone said the Assembly spends $70 million annually and, of that figure, only $40 million is specifically accounted for. Most of the rest has been controlled by the office of Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) through the Democratic majority of the Rules Committee, he said.

“The Legislature has been . . . derelict in ensuring its own financial and operational efficiency,” Firestone wrote. “The Legislature has set a bad example . . . and is bringing itself into disrepute because of the perception that proper controls do not exist.”

On Monday, a majority of the Assembly Rules Committee was reluctant to resist greater scrutiny.

Nevertheless, Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) questioned whether spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct an audit might not defeat its purpose.

Republican Assemblyman Ross Johnson of Placentia replied, “If Mr. Firestone is right, we’ll wind up saving a lot more than it is going to cost.”

Firestone estimated the price tag of a top-notch audit at about $500,000, but said he hoped the result would be a more cost-efficient, streamlined Legislature.

He noted that, taken together, the Assembly and Senate posted about $56 million in fixed assets in 1993 that were not made available for review by auditors taking a routine look at the Legislature’s finances.

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Firestone said his effort was not meant to be aimed at Democrats, who have controlled the Assembly throughout Brown’s 15-year tenure as Speaker. In fact, he said, he is soliciting Democratic co-authors to help back his resolution.

“This doesn’t deal with anything that happened in the past,” Firestone said. “This is not partisan. It’s strictly about how we will operate in the future.”