Vermont Public has been speaking with candidates for statewide office in the lead-up to Election Day, and now it’s time to hear from the two nominees for state auditor.
Incumbent Doug Hoffer, a Democrat/Progressive from Burlington, is seeking a seventh two-year term after first being elected auditor in 2012. Before that, he spent 19 years as a self-employed public policy analyst and five years working for the city of Burlington.
Meanwhile, Republican candidate H. Brooke Paige is retired with a background in business management. He lives in the Orange County town of Washington, and often seeks the GOP nomination for a handful of statewide offices in an election cycle. This year, he’ll also appear on the ballot as the Republican nominee for secretary of state, which we’ll learn more about later this week.
Vermont Public’s Mitch Wertlieb recently sat down with Paige and Hoffer to talk about the auditor position. And he started by asking about the role of auditor as it relates to state government in Vermont.
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and have been lightly edited for concision and clarity. They may contain errors, so please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
You can also read both additional written responses from both candidates in Vermont Public's candidate questionnaire.
H. Brooke Paige
H. Brooke Paige: The auditor has three specific areas of responsibility. First of all, he’s responsible for finding an accounting firm to audit the books of the state of Vermont. Secondly, he's responsible to answer back to the federal government for all of the loans and grants and things. The third thing he should be doing is carefully auditing all of the accounts — that's the name of the job: auditor of accounts — that relate to state spending activities. And not just state agencies, but also, if necessary, school boards and other municipal functions if there's believed to be a problem.
Mr. Hoffer is not an accountant. And not only does [incumbent Democratic-Progressive auditor] Doug Hoffer not have those qualifications, I certainly do not either. And so it's my intention, if I can be successful in being elected as auditor of accounts, to immediately go and confer with the governor and to express my interest in having myself replaced with the most highly qualified individual I know in the state of Vermont. And that's a woman by the name of Linda Joy Sullivan, a [former Democratic] representative from Dorset, and she's currently the mayor of Newport, Vermont.
Mitch Wertlieb: So you're basically running for someone else, in a way?
H. Brooke Paige: I guess I am. Yeah, it's something I'm more than willing to do. I mean, I think my biggest problem with auditor of accounts, treasurer, attorney general, and, to a lesser degree, secretary of state, is these should not be political positions. In many states, they're not even elected. And yet, in Vermont, they're political. And they're pretty partisan quite often. And the biggest problem with this is the best qualified people for these positions, quite often, are highly skilled professionals who don't want to go through all the political gamesmanship.
Mitch Wertlieb: This is an elected position, though, so let's talk about your opponent again, Doug Hoffer. He's been critical of programs, including a worker relocation effort that was aimed to pay out-of -state people to move to Vermont. He suggested that the incentives did not really actually encourage new residents to move here. What did you think of that idea?
H. Brooke Paige: I thought it was a bad idea. And I don't always disagree with Doug Hoffer, certainly. The Legislature comes up with a lot of ill-conceived ideas. You know, a lot of things that are touchy feely, kind of feel real good but have no proven reliability. And certainly, instead of us wanting to test these theories out, we just jump headlong into them, and wind up wasting a lot of taxpayer money.
Mitch Wertlieb: Are there any incentives you feel could work to increase Vermont's population of workers, perhaps bring younger people to the state as well?
H. Brooke Paige: Maybe a little bit of a tax incentive on the backside of a reduction, or a credit in earned income once they're here would be far preferable to just handing out money. We really need to get out of the habit of handing out money for anything.
Mitch Wertlieb: Are there any particular areas of state government that you think should receive some scrutiny from the auditor's office, whether it's on state spending, use of federal funds, the efficiency of different agencies, for example?
H. Brooke Paige: All of the above. My biggest concern is we need to really dig down into the numbers. Take a look just over the Connecticut River — New Hampshire has, I think, two-and-a-half times or three times the population, and spends half the amount of money to run their government. And don't get me wrong, New Hampshire has a substantial property tax; it’s how they're funding their schools, just like we are. But they have no state income tax. They have no state sales tax, at least on things you buy; they do have a sales tax on hotel and dining. But we're out of control.
Mitch Wertlieb: I have to ask one more question again about your your bid for state auditor. And you have made very clear that even if you were to win the position, you would resign and ask the governor to appoint someone that you feel is much more qualified, in this case, the mayor of Newport. I do wonder, Mr. Paige, though, is it fair to voters to have your name on the ballot for a position that you don't care to actually have, even if you win?
H. Brooke Paige: Not sure I wouldn't want to have it; I just realized that I'm not the most qualified person for it. And it's certainly not unfair when I have so clearly and full throatedly expressed exactly what I'm up to. And I know Doug Hoffer at a debate we had a few weeks ago, after it was over, he complained, you know, “I really don't think it's right that you're doing this.” And like you're saying, “If Linda Joyce Sullivan wanted the job, why doesn't she just run herself?”
Mitch Wertlieb: That is my question, yeah.
H. Brooke Paige: Yeah, I know. And, and my answer is, well, under the current circumstances, if I hadn't done this, Doug Hoffer would be having a coronation. Because there's nobody else on the ballot except me and him– and if I wasn't on the ballot, it’d be him.
Doug Hoffer
Doug Hoffer: We are the state's accountability office. We have three primary responsibilities. One is the old fashioned audit of the state's financial statements to make certain that we are in sync with federal statute and rules, because we get a lot of money from the federal government and they want to make sure we're playing by the rules. I respect the people who do them, and we hire an outside firm to do them, which leaves us free to do the part that's of most interest to me, and the only reason I wanted the job in the first place, which is called performance auditing.
Mitch Wertlieb: Performance auditing — it sounds to me like the chief mission of your job is to make sure state government spends Vermonters tax dollars effectively. Which means you don't decide what they're spent on, but that whatever the money is spent on — determined by lawmakers — is done so in the most effective way possible. Is that about right?
Doug Hoffer: Exactly. We review programs to see if, in fact, they're achieving the goals intended by the Legislature.
Mitch Wertlieb: How do you make that assessment? That sounds a little subjective to me.
Doug Hoffer: The professional standards we are required to adhere to are very rigorous. They're called Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards, and all state auditors are required to follow these rules. And if you don't, you will get slapped.
Because people often say, “Well, who audits the auditor?” Well, that's a very good question, and a fair one. Every three years we are subject to a peer review. And that team is made up of professional auditors from three or four different states, and they pick three or four of our jobs that have been done the last two years and they go through them with a fine-tooth comb.
Mitch Wertlieb: If you're elected to another term, what are some of the policy spending areas your office will be closely monitoring as Vermont tries to tackle some of the tough challenges ahead?
Doug Hoffer: We have done quite a bit of work on health care. Not only is it fascinating, immensely complex – but absolutely critical to the future of the state and the people in it. We're not going to do the work of the Green Mountain Care Board,. But we can review their work and encourage them to follow tips from us — and can we have an honest discussion? That's a challenging issue, because the power of some of the players — both economic and political — is immense.
Mitch Wertlieb: There are some programs you've been critical of. I'm thinking of the worker relocation program for one, that paid people from out of state to move to Vermont. This was in an effort to boost population, perhaps entice more young people to come here and put down roots. Was that a program that was funded by taxpayers already in Vermont?
Doug Hoffer: Yes, the problem with it was not uncommon to some other economic development programs. They were assuming that the people who were attracted by the gift of $5,000 or $10,000 would not have come here anyway.
Mitch Wertlieb: But how do you know those people from out of state would have come here anyway?
Doug Hoffer: Good question. As they were administering the program, after they responded to your application — you and your family were coming from New Jersey, or whatever — they had a little survey. “Why were you coming here?” They were curious. And some of it is quality of life. Some of it is, “I'm a skier,” all those kinds of things. But one of the options was “my spouse.” When that's the case, then they're coming anyway. You know, pretty tough to say otherwise.
Mitch Wertlieb: Most recently, you've been looking into money that went to certain businesses in Vermont as part of COVID-era funding, and your audit was critical of the oversight of some of the distribution. What were your concerns?
Doug Hoffer: At the outset, they had to decide how to respond to what was clearly a very tragic situation, the pandemic. The governor, like most governors, said “All you businesses, like restaurants, you have to close for now, for a time.” And that's a big deal in a tourist-based state.
So what the agency or the department did is ask the applicants for information about revenue loss. You're not earning the money that you would have had you been open, but by not being open, you don't have to make payroll. They weren't coming to work. Furthermore, if you're a restaurant, and normally you buy food, nobody was coming in. You didn't have to buy the food. So if your overhead declines significantly, then why would we limit the question as to how much money you can get from us for your revenue loss? That's wrong.
It should have been net operating income. And as a result, you know, the agency suspected that there were hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in unmet need. That is not the case, which we found. So back to the more current ones, this later COVID money, and the idea was that they would make this money available up to, like, $1 million. But thanks to a couple of legislators, particularly one who's now retired from the Senate, Michael Sirotkin, what he got them to do, or got his colleagues to agree to, is require the agency to have the state's legislative and administrative economists review the application for net fiscal impact. It was a powerful guardrail, and the agency hated it, as you can imagine.
Mitch Wertlieb: And when you say the agency, you're talking about the Agency of Commerce and Community Development?
Doug Hoffer: Correct. And I'm sure it was a lot of extra work. So in this case, they came back to the Legislature at the end of the next session. The governor said, “Where's my other $40 million? I want to extend this program.” So they gave it to him. Then they had a new program, but they got the latest. Legislature to agree to get rid of the requirement for net fiscal impact. And we reviewed how they themselves reviewed applications, how they rated and ranked them — and there were a lot of weaknesses. That's what was the area of disagreement between me and the commissioner.
Mitch Wertlieb: Let's talk about your Republican challenger for this job, H. Brooke Paige. He's indicated that he would actually resign from the post if he wins it, and ask the governor to appoint the current mayor of Newport, a Democrat, to the job instead. Part of the reason he says he's doing that is because he feels that, as a Democrat/Progressive candidate, you've infused too much of your political philosophy into the job. How would you respond to that criticism?
Doug Hoffer: I couldn't disagree more. There's nothing political about an audit report done to Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. It's just the facts. And furthermore, if he were to win, he would ask the governor to appoint somebody. What does that say about his view of democracy? If you want to run, serve, if you don't want to serve, don't run. If the mayor of Newport wants to be the auditor, she can run. I mean, this is silly.
Mitch Wertlieb: Doug Hoffer, you've held this auditor position since 2012. It's been a while. Now I'm wondering about your motivation. You seem passionate about this job. Is that fair to say?
Doug Hoffer: It is fair to say, and I've enjoyed it very much. I have a great team of people, but this will be my last term. I'm not a spring chicken. I could go on for a while, but it's time to move on and give someone else a chance. And I don't know who that would be.
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