Brian Sonntag

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Brian Sonntag, an American politician, is currently serving as the State Auditor for Washington. He is a Democrat.

Sonntag was first elected to public office in 1978 as Pierce County Clerk, working as the administrative officer for the Superior Courts. On November 4, 1986, he was elected to the office of Pierce County Auditor, an office his father, Jack W. Sonntag, had held from 1948 to 1969. Following the end of his second term, Sonntag was elected as the eighth Washington State Auditor on November 3, 1992. He has been re-elected every four years since then, most recently in a 31 percentage point victory in 2004[1] over Will Baker, a candidate from whom the Washington State Republican Party withdrew their endorsement. Even so, several counties in Eastern Washington voted overwhelmingly for Baker, showing more distrust in Sonntag than faith in Baker.

1 Personal
2 Experience
3 Challenges Ahead
4 External links

[edit] Personal

Sonntag was born in 1951 in Tacoma, WA. He attended Tacoma Community College and the University of Puget Sound. He later completed a graduate program in public affairs from the University of Washington. [2]

Sonntag has served on the boards of United Way and the Boys and Girls Club. He has volunteered for the YMCA and the March of Dimes and has also spent several years coaching youth baseball and basketball teams. [3] [4]

On May 7, 1999, the Municipal League of King County awarded Sonntag the Warren G. Magnuson Award for "implementing performance measures and the performance audit as constructive management tools for state and local governments, allowing them to operate more efficiently and be more accountable to their constituencies." [5]

Sonntag and his wife, Jann, live in Tacoma. They have five sons and three grandchildren.

[edit] Experience

Sonntag has served in public office since 1978 and as an auditor since 1986. Sonntag is a Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM), a designation formally recognized by 7 states since its inception in 1994. [6] He has been a member of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, State Productivity Board and the National State Auditors Association’s Performance Audit Task Force. Although four of the fourteen members of his executive team at the State Auditor's Office are CPAs, [7] the fact he is not a CPA has drawn criticism from some of his constituents. [8]

[edit] Challenges Ahead

One of the most publicized issues involving the Auditor's Office in 2006 has been it pending performance audit of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Sonntag's office is currently examining the WSDOT's inventory and project management, as well as its overall administration and overhead. [9] Always a hot topic of debate, traffic congestion in Seattle has caused many commuters to look more closely at what is being done to alleviate the problem. One sign that legislators are attempting to address the problem came in the form of SB 6839. The State Auditor was granted legal authority to conduct performance audits of transportation-related agencies on June 7, 2006, the effective date of Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6839. Section 5.2.c of the bill states, "Fair, independent, comprehensive performance audits of transportation-related agencies overseen by the elected state auditor are essential to improving the efficiency, economy, and effectiveness of the state's transportation system." [10] Despite the bill's passage, Sonntag is reportedly facing resistance from the transportation committee as he moves forward with the audit.[11] However, this may be due to several reorganinzations in the unit. Since the Performance Audit Team was assembled, it has undergone at least three major reorganizations in upper management. In addition, the perceived emphasis on performance audits has been noted by staff on the "regular" audit side of the agency. Staff on the Performance Audit Team have received raises which other staff have been denied - mostly due to trying to spend the funds allocated to the performance audits a result of I-900's allocation of sales tax revenue to fund performance audits. This may be contributing to the agency's nearly 20% turnover rate in staff.