A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Oregon failing
on its audits
O
regon’s latest “Annual report of statewide
internal audit activities” might be a per-
fect sleep aid. But that annual report is a really
good idea.
That is, it’s a really good idea if it’s done
right.
Big state agencies in Oregon are basically
required by law to take a hard, objective look
at themselves every year and figure out what
they might need to do better. It could lead to
improvement in government. And the audits
improve transparency. They give Oregonians
a window into how government agencies are
doing.
This year, the executive summary of the re-
port is packed with good news. Agencies com-
pleted 56 audits. Three agencies got top marks
from “external quality reviews.” Fully 21 of the
state internal auditors hold advanced degrees.
And the highlight reel goes on with more.
Read just that executive summary and it
seems like it’s going great. Dig deeper, though,
and the state actually met only one of its goals
for internal audits. Some agencies didn’t even
do them. There are, of course, excuses for not
doing them. There always are.
One goal is that 100% of state agencies com-
ply with ORS 184.360. That’s the state law that
requires internal audits. The state didn’t hit it.
Just 79% of the required agencies produced a
risk assessment of the agency that conforms to
national standards.
Just 72% completed at least one audit per
year based on its annual report.
Just 69% completed a governance or risk
management audit in the last five years.
The state also aims for a goal that 75% of
state agencies complete an annual audit plan
each year. Just 55% of agencies did.
The state’s final two goals for internal audits
have to do with using audits to improve gov-
ernment. One is that agencies do surveys af-
ter an audit to figure out ways to improve how
they do audits. Just 83% did.
We had to chuckle when we saw the one
goal that the state achieved. It’s related to that
last goal of conducting surveys after an audit.
The state hopes that at least 90% of survey re-
sponses affirmatively state that the audit pro-
vided value to the organization. Fully 100%
percent believed the audit work had value —
now if only more agencies would actually do
the audits as required.
If this report is to be truly useful, shouldn’t
the executive summary highlight that actually,
year after year, many state agencies don’t get
these audits done? Shouldn’t there be a brief
summary about what each internal audit did
find?
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
Baker City Herald. Columns, letters and
cartoons on this page express the opinions of the
authors and not necessarily that of the
Baker City Herald.
COLUMN
Prestigious universities lack
consistency in pandemic rules
BY TYLER COWEN
F
or anyone who believes that America’s
elite institutions of higher learning are
taken far too seriously — and I count my-
self among the believers — the last two
years have been bracing. Of course I am
referring to COVID policy, in particular
the current efforts of Princeton and Yale
to restrict the off-campus movements of
their students in fairly radical ways.
This week Yale sent out an email laying
out requirements for returning students.
According to the Yale Daily News, there
will be a campus-wide quarantine until
Feb. 7, which may be extended. Further-
more, students “may not visit New Haven
businesses or eat at local restaurants (even
outdoors) except for curbside pickup.”
Meanwhile, in Princeton, the university
issued this announcement on Dec. 27:
“Beginning January 8 through mid-Feb-
ruary, all undergraduate students who
have returned to campus will not be per-
mitted to travel outside of Mercer County
or Plainsboro Township for personal
reasons, except in extraordinary circum-
stances. … We’ll revisit and, if possible,
revise this travel restriction by February
15.”
My first reaction, as someone who
teaches at George Mason University in
northern Virginia, is to be amazed that
the life of the Yale campus and the life of
New Haven can be so readily separated.
If Yale truly has evolved to be a separate
enclave, then that is a sign of trouble,
pandemic or not. My school is so inte-
grated with the local community — in-
cluding a large number of commuting
students — that such a regulation would
be unthinkable. Princeton at least is rec-
ognizing that the university and the town
are pretty much inseparable.
My second reaction is that these two
elite American institutions have lost their
moorings. Can you imagine your school
telling you not to leave the county?
“The restrictions also
show these universities
as content to treat their
students much worse than
their faculty and staff —
a faculty and staff that is
typically older and thus
more at risk for COVID.”
(Though Princeton sports teams are
somehow exempted.)
If Princeton or Yale took the position
that the current state of COVID is so po-
tentially dangerous that the entire univer-
sity must be shut down, that would at least
be consistent (and, in March 2020, I agreed
with that view). But these policies do not
and indeed cannot insulate these universi-
ties from the outside world. The omicron
strain is going to spread at Princeton and
Yale regardless of whether students gather
at Hoagie Haven or Modern Apizza.
The selectivity is stunning. The Princ-
eton policy restricts the travel of under-
graduates, but what of the other people af-
filiated with the university, such as faculty,
staff or contractors? The Yale policy pre-
vents students from patronizing local New
Haven businesses, but what if a professor
wants to drive up to Cambridge?
The assumption seems to be that the vi-
rus spreads in particular ways that can be
controlled by a university with virtually no
enforcement apparatus. It is all but impos-
sible to imagine an enforcement of these
rules that is in any way universal and fair.
What about the risk from keeping the
students together in dorms? Princeton has
a 20-student limit on gatherings, but if the
virus is that dangerous, can a group of 19
students be justified? Masks are useful, but
they are not a cure-all and not always of
sufficient quality. Keep in mind that as of
last semester, when the more dangerous
delta variant was dominant, Princeton’s
eating clubs were open.
Perhaps the strongest defense of these
policies is this: Universities can only do
so much. And if they don’t want to shut
down, at least they can institute rules to
help limit the spread of the virus until the
omicron wave passes.
I doubt these policies will significantly
limit the spread of COVID. But my ob-
jection is more fundamental: They put
universities in the untenable position of
both panicking about COVID and treating
COVID as trivial. Given the purpose of a
university as an educational leader, a uni-
versity that is hypocritical and rhetorically
corrupt is failing outright.
The restrictions also show these uni-
versities as content to treat their stu-
dents much worse than their faculty and
staff — a faculty and staff that is typically
older and thus more at risk for COVID.
The liberty of Yale students to visit a local
bookshop or grocer is less important than
freedom of movement for faculty and ad-
ministrators.
Imagine the reaction if a professor or
a dean told a student: “I will go out and
about and do largely as I please. But you
have to stay on campus, so you do not in-
fect me.” It would be considered outra-
geous, and rightly so.
Right now some of America’s top uni-
versities are essentially sending that mes-
sage — in the process telling the world that
they are not morally serious. They should
not be surprised, then, when the world
starts believing them.
Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion
columnist. He is a professor of economics
at George Mason University and writes for
the blog Marginal Revolution. His books
include “Big Business: A Love Letter to an
American Anti-Hero.”
OTHER VIEWS
Biden’s federal vaccine mandate is not the solution
Editorial from The Detroit News:
President Joe Biden’s efforts
to halt the spread of COVID-19
through vaccine mandates got its
ultimate test on Friday, Jan. 7 — a
hearing before the U.S. Supreme
Court. At the heart of this debate
is just how much authority federal
agencies have to apply such sweep-
ing orders.
Federal courts have rightly called
into question this apparent over-
reach by the Biden administration,
with judges around the country
halting all iterations of the man-
dates, whether for certain health
care workers, federal contractors
or private employers. Just over the
weekend, a judge in Louisiana ruled
that Biden can’t force teachers in the
Head Start early education program
to get the vaccine, saying the order
illegally bypassed Congress.
It’s the mandate impacting pri-
vate businesses with 100 or more
employees that is especially egre-
gious, however. The 500 pages of
rules issued in early November by
the Labor Department’s Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Adminis-
tration require employees at these
companies get vaccinated or agree
to regular testing. If employers don’t
comply, they face hefty fines.
The “emergency temporary stan-
dard” rules, which bypassed the
typical notice and comment period
for rulemaking, as well as Con-
gress, were almost immediately
put on hold by the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals on constitutional
grounds.
Then last month, 6th Circuit in a
2-1 ruling allowed the rules to pro-
ceed. In her strongly worded dis-
sent, Judge Joan Larsen (a Trump
administration appointee) wrote
the following: “This emergency
rule remains a massive expansion
of the scope of (the administra-
tion’s) authority.”
She also compared OSHA’s
far-reaching rules to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s
eviction ban, which the Supreme
Court overturned last year.
Challengers, including business
groups, appealed to the Supreme
Court. Attorneys general in more
than half the states have fought
against the mandates.
The Michigan Chamber of Com-
merce has voiced its concerns, as
well as those of many others in
the business community. It has ar-
gued that while it supports vac-
cines, mandates are not the answer,
and targeting employers with 100
or more workers could harm their
ability to keep on or hire workers at
a time when many employers are al-
ready having difficulty finding staff.
Even Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last
month admitted vaccine mandates
would be a “problem for all of us.”
Given the Supreme Court’s de-
cision to hear the case, the Biden
administration has slightly delayed
enforcement to Jan. 10 from Jan.
4, but this still puts employers in a
bind in trying to figure out how to
proceed.
The nation is already facing a
shortage of COVID tests, despite
Biden’s assurances he’d fix the prob-
lem. It’s unclear where businesses
would acquire the necessary tests to
comply with OSHA’s rules.
In a call with governors late last
month, Biden said “there is no fed-
eral solution” to COVID. The pres-
ident should take his own words to
heart.
Breakthrough cases are becoming
more common, and vaccines alone
will not stop the spread. A better
approach would be to focus on en-
suring states have adequate access
to testing and the early virus treat-
ments that are coming online.
Such expansive federal mandates
go against our system of federalism
and our constitutional rights, and
are unlikely to significantly slow
the virus.