Auditor general Michael Ferguson breaks down $23M cost of Senate audit

Auditor General Michael Ferguson saidthe $23.6-millionprice tag for his critical audit of Senate spending is not out ofthe ordinary for his office.

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Nor did it cost his office extra cash to conduct the sweepingtwo-year probe, which he said was paid for within the confines ofhis budget.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Ferguson provided abreakdown of the costs for the audit released Tuesday.

The $23.6 million includes costs that would have beenincurred regardless of what the auditors were working on, suchsalaries, utilities and office space, he said.

Those expenses, known as "allocated costs," account forabout half the $23.6-million total, he said.

That means the direct cost of the audit was between $11 millionand $12 million.

"That really represents the opportunity costs," Ferguson said."Those are the auditors that could have been doing somethingdifferent."

Those direct costs aren't out of the ordinary for a large auditconducted by his office, he added.

1,000 hours per senator

On average, auditors spent about 1,000 hours oneach senator under review because some cases were more complicatedthan auditors expected,Ferguson said.

He also said his office underestimated how much time each filewould take, but "we ended up having to do all of the audit withinour regular office budget."

Ferguson has come under criticism for the cost of the audit,given that his work identified just $991,917 worth of wrongfulclaims out of 80,000 transactions over the two-year span of theaudit.

It's easy to add up what we found and to look at the cost anddo that strict comparison, but I think there's a lot more behindthat to get to understanding.- Auditor General Michael Ferguson

Earlier reports from The Canadian Press had the questionablespending pegged at nearly $977,000, based on having seen portions ofthe report before it was released to the public on Tuesday.

Ferguson said that direct comparison spending $23.6 million tofind less than $1 million in bad claims shouldn't bethe onlymeasure Canadians use to judge the value of the Senate audit.

Ferguson pointed to a recent audit his office did on access tomental health services for veterans that didn't identify any savingsand would likely cost government coffers to deal with the issuesidentified.

"In this audit, because people can look at what it costs andthey can look at these itemizations, there's this natural sort oftendency to compare the million dollars to the ($23.6 million),"Ferguson said.

"It's easy to add up what we found and to look at the cost anddo that strict comparison, but I think there's a lot more behindthat to get to understanding."