OPM Secretary Ben Barnes speaks on a panel about state finances. He inherited an agency that doesn't know how many reports it is legally required to write.
Connecticut’s planning and budget agency, the Office of Policy and Management, is breaking the law – according to auditors – because the agency’s leaders don’t even know how many reports they are required to write.
The General Assembly requires at least 100 OPM reports by law, auditors say, although there are no clear penalties for not completing the reports.
In an audit covering fiscal year 2007 and 2008, when Robert Genuario served as OPM Secretary for Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the Auditors of Public Accounts checked 23 assigned reports. OPM completed 12 on time, didn’t do five and submitted six of them late.
According to the auditors, OPM still doesn’t know exactly how many reports it needs to complete.
“Even though we just got the report yesterday we had already begun the process of organizing and tracking all of OPM’s statutory requirements – including reports, commission memberships and more,” said OPM spokesman Gian-Carl Casa, who works for the current OPM Secretary, Ben Barnes.