By his own admission, Auditor Josh Gallion had a rocky relationship with lawmakers last session, which resulted in the Legislature appropriating funding for an audit of Gallion's office. That audit has been completed. It had findings related to communications issues and confusing invoices. The review also found that Gallion has implemented measures to improve these issues, and that they have improved.

Gallion joined this episode of Plain Talk to discuss the audit of his office, as well as a request he's making to lawmakers to give him subpoena power to help his office review public/private partnerships.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback that we received last legislative session," Gallion said. He said there was some "additional emotion" on both sides of the relationship between his office and the Legislature during the 2023 session, but that he hopes to put that in the past.

"We definitely needed to improve the communications and the detail and the training. So, that's the feedback that we really appreciated last session," he said.

As for subpoena power, a growing number of government entities in North Dakota are working with or through private entities like nonprofits. Sometimes, the nonprofits are even created by the government entities themselves. This presents a challenge for Gallion and his team because their authority "really stops at the edge of that government organization," he told co-host Chad Oban and I.

"If we do need to follow the money, there are times where we have challenges and these private entities may not have to necessarily comply with the public records," he continued.

Gallion's office has submitted a proposal for subpoena power to lawmakers.

Also on this episode, Dean Mitchell from DFM Research talked about a survey he conducted which was sponsored by North Dakota United, the state's teacher and public worker's union which Oban also works for. The survey found strong support for universal school lunches and property tax reform, as well as opposition to using public dollars to fund private school tuition.

Mitchell walked us through the survey's results.

This episode is brought to you by the North Dakota Petroleum Foundation, providing education and outreach opportunities related to the petroleum industry, advancing quality of life initiatives, and promoting and enhancing the conservation heritage of North Dakota - learn more at www.NDPetroleumFoundation.org.

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