What has the State Auditor found inside Massachusetts government?

The State Auditor is the public’s watchdog — an independent office that checks whether state agencies, sheriffs, district attorneys, courts, public colleges, and the organizations paid with public funds follow the rules and spend public money properly. Government, not private citizens. This site makes those audits searchable, with every figure linked to its source.

969

audits

of state government & the entities it funds, 1999–2026

~2,250

findings

~1,100 of them: rules not followed

~$590.6M

identified

public money found improper, questioned, or uncollected

561

entities audited

agencies, sheriffs, DAs, courts, colleges & providers

Counts are AI-extracted, rounded, and source-verified. How accurate is this?

Find an audit

Browse all 969 audits → · or ask the audits a question →

A few things the audits turned up

Real examples behind the numbers — click any to dig in.

 $92.0M
found in a single audit
Office of Medicaid (MassHealth) - Review of Fee-for-Service Payments for Services Covered by the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership
 71×
the most-audited entity
Office of Medicaid (MassHealth)
 ~1,100
times an agency fell short
audit checks that came back “did not comply”
 108
problems that came back
of 316 the Auditor re-checked — did they fix it?
 

What do they check, and what do they find?

Most audits are not about money. They test whether agencies follow the rules and safeguard public resources. Across 969 audits the Auditor set out to answer specific questions; here is how they came out, and what they found.

The verdicts on the Auditor's questions

41%14%43%

Did not comply: 1,083 (41%) Partially complied: 364 (14%) Unable to determine: 29 (1%) Complied: 1,136 (43%)

2,612 audit objectives across 969 audits - each a question the Auditor set out to answer, and how it came out. (Objectives, not findings.)

What the Auditor checks, by subject area

Each bar is a subject area the Auditor examined; segments show how those checks came out. Counts are audit objectives (the questions asked), classified by subject - not findings.

Did they fix it?

When the Auditor re-examines an entity, the report says whether a prior finding was fixed, is being worked on, or came back. Across 316 attested follow-ups:

Still a problem: 108 Being worked on: 67 Fixed: 141

See did-they-fix-it, with the Auditor's own words →

Audits across Massachusetts

Where the entities the Auditor reviewed are located, by county. Click a county to browse its audits.

323 audits placed by county (darker = more). Click a county to browse its audits.

Not on the map (no single county): Statewide agencies: 391 Nonprofits & vendors: 255

Largest things the Auditor reviewed

The biggest programs, contracts, and funds an audit examined, sized by their total dollar value. This is the scale of what was reviewed, not money found wrong. (For example, the Auditor may review a $900M contract and find a small amount improper, or none.)

Audits sized by the dollars they examined. Click any block to open the report.

Audits with the most money at issue

Sized by the dollars the Auditor identified as improper, questioned, or uncollected in that audit. This is money the audit flagged as at issue, not what the audit cost or the agency's budget.

Audits with the most source-verified identified dollars. Click any block to open the report.

How much money the Auditor found, by type

Not every dollar an audit mentions is "money found." We sort each verified figure so the headline counts only money identified as improper, questioned, or uncollected. Scale figures an audit cites for context, like total contract sizes or fund balances, are not money found wrong, so they are shown on the individual reports and not totaled here.

Source-verified figures only. Hover a bar for its total and item count.

Improper payments identified: Money paid out that the audit found should not have been - overpayments, unallowable and nonreimbursable charges, improper claims.
Questioned costs: Costs the audit could not support as allowable, pending the entity's response.
Revenue not collected: Money the entity was owed but failed to assess or collect - unassessed penalties, underpaid incentives.
Recovered / repaid not in headline: Funds recovered or repaid to the Commonwealth.
Projected / estimated not in headline: Estimated or sample-projected amounts - shown separately because they are not a hard-identified dollar figure.
Other identified not in headline: Identified dollar findings that do not fall in a named band.