The Auditor General for the State of Michigan is appointed by the Legislature, as prescribed by Article IV, Section 53 of the Michigan Constitution.  Doug Ringler, CPA, CIA, was reappointed Auditor General by the Michigan Legislature on May 26, 2022 for a second eight-year term by the Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 27 of 2022.
Yes, the Auditor General is nonpartisan and independent. Article IV, Section 53 of the Michigan Constitution organized the OAG in the legislative branch of State government to conduct audits of State government operations.
The Auditor General conducts post-audits of State government agencies and operations per the Michigan Constitution. See also the Audits and Examinations Act and Attorney General Opinion 6749.
The OAG cannot audit local governments, school districts, private businesses, or individual taxpayers. This limit is set forth by the Michigan Constitution and Attorney General Opinion 6225, Attorney General Opinion 6970, and Attorney General Opinion 7158.

If you have a concern about an entity that we cannot audit, you may find the following resources helpful:

Department of Treasury Bureau of Local Government
Michigan Municipal League
The OAG has no enforcement authority for corrective action. The OAG provides the information to the audited agency, the Legislature, and the public. The auditee is required to establish a corrective action plan. The Legislature may request the OAG to present an audit report at a public meeting and request the agency to present its response and corrective actions. The executive branch has the authority to make changes through policy, procedure, or rule, and the Legislature has the authority to effect change through State law or State appropriations.

The OAG may follow up on the status of previously issued findings and report its results in publicly released reports called Follow-Up Reports on Prior Audit Recommendations. These are often performed for material findings within an 18-month window at the discretion of the Auditor General based on resources and other factors, such as the amount of time that an agency may reasonably need to make changes.
The Work in Progress tab of our Web site contains the audit objective(s) and estimated release time frames for all ongoing audits. The tab is located at the top of our home page.
Yes, you may sign up here and receive an e-mail for every report issued by the Auditor General. The OAG also notifies interested parties when projects begin and when a date has been established for a report release. In addition, the OAG links to the reports once released via X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook. You may choose to follow us on one or more of those mediums and receive our posts.
They are issued to the agency that is the subject of the audit, to all legislators, and to the public. Anyone can find the reports on our Web site, ask to be on our e-mail distribution list, and follow us on X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, or Facebook, where we post all report links at the time of release.
To contact the OAG with a concern, you can complete the Contact Us or Fraud/Waste/Abuse forms. The links to these forms can be found at the bottom of our Web site home page.

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