Frequent Questions

Legislative Post Audit provides auditing services to the Legislature. Audits are important to elected officials, government agencies, and taxpayers because they provide overall accountability for how tax dollars are used. Legislative Post Audit provides the following audit services:

• Performance audits. Performance audits look at such things as:
• how well are agencies or programs being run?
• could they be run better, or more efficiently?
• are they really accomplishing what they're supposed to? (For example, is the KanWork program getting people off welfare? Do nursing home inspections make residents safer?)
• Financial audits. Many financial audits are required by State or federal law. In general, Legislative Post Audit contracts these audits to public accounting firms. These audits cover the State's accounting system and certain State agencies.

With our 26professional and support staff, we are able to do about 20-25 performance audits and compliance and control audits each year. The financial audits are contracted out to accounting firms. Generally, we have 3-5 audits under way at any time.

Audits are important for many reasons, including the following:

• audits provide objective, unbiased information about how agencies are operating, and whether they're accomplishing what they're supposed to. This information isn't always available from State agencies
• the feedback provided in audits can help legislators carry out their oversight responsibility for the agencies and programs they create or fund each year
• as State programs grow increasingly complex, audits can give legislators straightforward information to make more informed decisions about the issues they face (for example, school finance, workers compensation, State computer systems)
• as tax dollars shrink, it becomes more important than ever that agencies keep careful track of their money, spend it wisely, and spend it on the right things. Audits can help
• identify ways to save money
• identify programs that may no longer serve a useful purpose
• identify practices that place State money or resources at risk of being lost, misused, or stolen
• overall, audits inform taxpayers about how well their tax dollars are being used. Audits provide some assurance that the Legislature is interested in finding and addressing problems in the operation of State government
• finally, waste, fraud, and abuse are the enemies of good government. Audits can sometimes ferret out such problems, so that agencies are being held accountable for their actions.

Feel free to contact our office at (785) 296-3792, and we'll locate and provide you with a copy of any audits related to your concerns. In addition, this Web site includes a list of every performance audit done since 1983, and PDF versions of most audits since 2000.

The Legislative Post Audit Committee decides which requests will be approved, and in general audit requests can only come from legislators. If you're a member of the public, the best way to get an audit done is to contact one or more of your legislators.

If you're a legislator, you can make your request, orally or in writing, through any member of the Legislative Post Audit Committee, or by contacting the Post Audit staff directly. We'll work with you to refine and focus your concerns into a –scope statement,” a one-page summary that describes the audit work we probably would do. Your request is confidential until you approve the draft scope statement. At that time, it's put before the Committee for consideration.

Our reports sometimes may have more information than you want or need to know. In those cases, we can provide our information in other ways:

• We can provide you with a three-to-four-page executive summary that gives you a quick rundown of the report, plus a summary of the recommendations and the audited agency's response.
• The first couple of pages of each audit report contains an even briefer executive summary, designed to give you the bottom-line facts, figures, findings, and our recommendations.
• If you're really in a hurry, and just have specific questions about something in the report, call our office at (785) 296-3792 and we'll put you in touch with the audit supervisor or other knowledgeable staff member who can answer your questions.
• Finally, for most recent audits, our Web site includes both an executive summary and the full report in PDF format.