State Auditor Marion Higa released several audits recently, and notified members of the House and Senate of their availability in a June 2 letter. These financial audits involved a number of state departments, including the Attorney General, Hawaiian Homelands, Education, and Transportation. Interesting stuff.

These financial statements can be viewed at the auditor’s web site. Looks like there could be some interesting material

What caught my attention, though, were these sentences in the auditor’s letter to legislators. [note: broken link corrected]

However, due to the confidential nature of the information contained within the management letter and advisory reports, we will not be placing the text of these reports on our website. If you would like to receive copies of these reports, please contact the respective departments directly.

What isn’t clear is whether the auditor is saying management letters are exempt from public disclosure, or whether they are not available on the public website and have to be requested directly.

If the former, it seems to me that the blanket and sweeping statement declaring certain types of documents as “confidential” is of some concern. In other contexts, confidential information contained in reports would typically be omitted rather than declaring whole documents as confidential. I would at least expect that the auditor would be explicit about the kind of information being treated as confidential and why withholding specific information, rather than entire documents, is considered necessary.

So what’s actually missing? I compared the list of audits in the letter with the list of audits on the website. Here’s what’s missing.

Management letter accompanying the Attorney General’s financial audit and single audit report.

Hawaiian Home Lands “Internal Controls and Business Issues Report”

Hawaii Public Housing Authority management letter

Hawaii Metropolitan Planning Organization management letter

There is a section of the state law that defines categories of government records that are exempt from public disclosure (Section 92F-13).

Exemptions include records which would be a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” It doesn’t seem likely that an auditor’s management letter would contain such intensely private information.

There is also a broad exemption in Section 92F-13(3):

(3) Government records that, by their nature, must be confidential in order for the government to avoid the frustration of a legitimate government function;

This is a very thorny exemption, and could be what the auditor is relying on in withholding these records. While I didn’t see an opinion from the Office of Information Practices that is directly on point, a June 1990 opinion that looks at the scope of this exemption gives some idea of how arcane the analysis can become.

I’m not clear on what these management letters would typically contain. I did find a 2005 management letter addressed to DCCA regarding Hawaii’s public access media organizations, and see that the city auditor appears to routinely disclose its management letter accompanying the annual financial audit of the city.

A Google search turned up many instances from other states where management letters are treated as public documents. A Florida state sunshine manual refers to confidentiality of records of educational institutions, except for “the auditor’s report, management letter, and any supplemental data requested by the Board of Governors, the Auditor General, board of trustees, and the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.”

Ohio’s Office of Management and Budget website states: “The state of Ohio’s Management Letters are public documents, once issued. Copies of Management Letters can be requested from the Auditor of State.”

I noticed one newspaper item indicating that a Washington State auditor’s management letter concerning a local municipality was disclosed under the state’s Open Records Act.

So at least in parts of the country, those management letters would be routinely available to the public.

In a any case, since audits of state agencies are a key part of public accountability, it seems odd to me that management letters would be given a blanket exemption, especially not an exemption explicitly written into statute.