COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State auditor Mary Taylor criticized the Strickland administration Wednesday for dragging its feet after she requested financial records for a state audit.
NBC 4 will sit down with the woman at the center of the audit controversy, State Auditor Mary Taylor, Thursday at 11 p.m. to hear whether or not she thinks the state can really be trusted with your tax dollars.
NBC 4's Ana Jackson found out WHERE IT STANDS with the Strickland administration.
The Ohio Administrative Knowledge System – or OAKS – was a new program that was supposed to make the government more efficient.
Though it was designed during the Taft administration, OAKS did not start until Taft left office.
Officials in the Strickland administration said the design was flawed and that they were trying to fix the problems.
OAKS consolidated 158 outdated systems into one; state agencies were using the outdated systems in conjunction with OAKS because the new program would not always respond.
"Not all the data is where we expect it to be," Ron Sylvester of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services said.
Sylvester said it was taking them so long to produce financial statements because OAKS had to be customized to fix each problem.
"You're saying the designs are not totally correct, so should you have gone in and fixed the designs before you launched it," Sylvester said.
"Some things you don't find out until you get to what we call the steady state -- when you're working with it every day and demands are placed on the system," he said.
OAKS was launched in January of 2007 when Governor Strickland took office and $140 million tax dollars had already been invested in the software, Sylvester said.
"We felt it was the most reasonable thing to do to get it up and running," Sylvester said.
Sylvester told NBC 4 that spending was still less than the $158 million that was earmarked for the project and that the state had increased resources to fix problems and train agencies on how to use the program.
"This is not something people take lightly," Sylvester said. "We don't want you to think we think this is OK because it's a new system. We're just saying this is the reality of doing business."
Sylvester promised that the financial statements for next year would be ready on time.
Officials said OAKS will eventually drive down the costs of running the government.
For additional information, stay with NBC 4 and refresh nbc4i.com -- Where Accuracy Matters.
To submit a story idea or news tip, e-mail stories@nbc4i.com.
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