Auditors: Agents for Good Government

Auditing is often considered by government officials to be primarily concerned with the proper safeguarding of funds and property and authorized spending of funds. This is only part of the concern of government auditing, which has come to involve a broader scope of activity because government officials and their constituents are often interested in knowing more than how much money was spent and whether that amount was within authorized limits.

If a program involves a social goal government officials want to know whether the expenditures produced material changes in the social problems that were the target of the program. They also want to know whether those spending the funds limited their buying to necessary items and got good bargains for the money spent. The broader scope auditing is responding to those interests of government officials and the public.

The purpose of this booklet, prepared with the assistance of a nonprofit organization with wide experience in State and local finance, is to explain what this type of audit is and what it can achieve.