- Auditors found this agency missed thousands of deadlines for child safety assessments.
- Another recommended USU leadership increase accountability for university purchases.
- A final audit identified cyber security improvements needed to protect clean water supply.
Every year the Utah Legislature appropriates, and the Utah governor approves, around $8 million to fund an office with one job: to tell them what they are doing wrong and what they need to improve.
The Office of Legislative Auditor General was created in 1975, three years after Utah voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring the Legislature to appoint its own watchdog to scrutinize “funds, functions, and accounts.”
Any lawmaker can request an audit through a bipartisan committee of House and Senate leadership. But no lawmaker gets early access to the results of the audits — which pull no punches when providing constructive criticism for public officials.
“Our main focus is to ensure that government is being efficient and effective,” Legislative Auditor General Kade Minchey told the Deseret News. “Everything that we do, top to bottom, is helping government be better.”
While almost all states have some sort of auditor focused on policy implementation, Utah’s legislative auditor ranks among the top states in the nation, with available data, for how often its audit recommendations are implemented.
The implementation rate for audit recommendations made by the legislative auditor between 2021 and 2023 was 88% for policy suggestions made to the Legislature and 91% for policy suggestions made to state agencies.
Influence of the auditor
As one of the Capitol’s quietest constitutional officers, Minchey is modest about the influence of his office. But there is no denying the impact Minchey’s audits have had on Utah policies related to health care, education and elections.
Following a series of audits that found serious lapses in medical care provided to inmates, the responsibility for prisoner health care was shifted in 2022 from the Utah Department of Corrections to Health and Human Services.
And in 2024, a pair of audits that found signature verification errors by county clerks and problems with voter rolls at the Lieutenant Governor’s Office were used to inform a package of several election bills in 2025 and 2026.
“Our Legislature values our work ... as much or more than anywhere else that I’ve ever seen as I’ve gone around,” Minchey said. “And the way that they value us is by taking our audits and implementing them.”
The Office of Legislative Auditor General publishes anywhere from 15 to 30 audits every year, made public on their website. Every Utahn can work with their elected representative to propose their own audit, Minchey said.
Major findings on water, child safety
On Friday, the Legislative Audit Subcommittee, composed of top leaders from the Republican majority and Democratic minority considered the first audits of 2026, which found major room for improvement on multiple accounts.
One audit identified patterns of financial noncompliance among leadership at Utah State University. It recommended increased accountability for university purchases and a revised budget model that incentivizes better programs.
Another audit revealed the Division of Child and Family Services had missed safety assessment deadlines for children in thousands of cases. The audit calls for tougher oversight from supervisors and senior leadership.
A final audit recommended the Drinking Water Board require community water systems to adopt federal cybersecurity practices after a majority of water systems reported they had not briefed their governing boards about vulnerabilities.
“Thank you again to a great, great vision, and thank you for your great work,” Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, told Minchey at the close of Friday’s presentation. “Again, we think you’re the greatest team around.”
Independence is everything
The Office of Legislative Auditor General is strictly nonpartisan and has developed respectful relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and most state agencies, according to Minchey.
That doesn’t mean they are in the business of making friends.
While the legislative auditor works for the Legislature, legislators don’t get to see audit reports until they are officially published, Minchey said. And audits often have critiques that public officials don’t want to hear.
“It’s absolutely critical that auditors are always seen as being independent and objective because that’s our value,” Minchey said. “But there are people that don’t see that, and there are people that get frustrated with audits.”
The performance audits conducted by Minchey’s team of 45 policy analysts to provide legislative feedback differ from the financial audits carried out by accountants at the State Auditor’s Office — which receives $9 million a year.
Minchey said there is value in having two types of auditors with two different sources of independence, with State Auditor Tina Cannon chosen by constituents in a statewide election and Minchey appointed by top lawmakers.