Gov. Matt Meyer signs his third executive order within a week of taking office — this one taking aim at increasing government transparency.
The Center for Public Integrity ranks Delaware 48th in transparency and accountability and gave the First State an F in several categories, like public access to information and ethics enforcement.
Just within the past year the state has struggled with potential opioid settlement grant fraud, state employee compensation double-dipping and embezzlement within the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
Meyer says it’s time to take action — fulfilling a top campaign promise — and is setting an aggressive timeline to do so.
“If any money is being misspent or we're not being transparent about any of your tax money, we will identify it within 90 days. It should not take longer than that," he said.
The governor is ordering all state agencies to conduct internal reviews, develop performance improvement plans and review four years worth of audit findings within the next three months.
The Governor's Office will also conduct its own performance review of all state government services within the Executive Branch in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Finance.
“This should not take a year. The reality is, we don't want to rush it, we want to make sure it's done right. The first thing we're going to do is make sure we're honestly and transparently selecting a group to do it, whether it's an internal group within state government and more likely an outside group that's going to come in and look and look at what are best practices.”
The executive order also requires all state employees to report waste, fraud, abuse and corruption in accordance with the law.
The requirement comes nine months after the public was made aware of a former Department of Labor employee stealing over $180,000 from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and two months month prior, State Auditor Lydia York deemed the fund "unauditable."
The Department of Justice said efforts would be made to claw back the stolen funds. The department says no updates can be provided at this time due to the nature of this case.
When the audit and fraud was made public, the State Auditor and Department of Labor largely cited antiquated reporting systems, strain from the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of proper staff training.
Meyer said although it's a possibility these reviews could reveal departments need more staffing and money to execute proper transparency techniques, he believes it's not the root of the problem.
"I spent a lot of time as a sixth and seventh grade math teacher in schools where people say 'it's all about the money,' and I know from teaching it's almost never all about the money," Meyer said. "Having said that, some things will be about the money — we're realistic. I'm not making a promise that if a performance review comes back, or a department head comes back, and they say, 'We can fix this problem, but we need to hire 500 people, we need to increase our staffing 25% in the next year,' I'm not committing to doing that within our budget. We're going to look at this report and use it as a tool in the toolbox to make sure we're delivering better higher quality services faster to Delawareans."
Meyer and his team also intend to develop a draft statewide policy for ethics training for state employees by April 1.
"There are amazing public servants working across state government among those 30,000 employees, but we're putting those who are unethical and who are dishonest in the workplace on notice today that you will be held accountable. And that's what that aspect of that executive order does, and making sure, in so far, if there are things that have happened in recent months or years that the auditor has uncovered, and we can take immediate action, whether it's to recover taxpayer money or to improve a service or to hold the individuals accountable, we're going to do that and we're going to do that quickly."
The executive order is three of four that the governor has signed so far — the latest expedites the affordable housing permit process.
