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Speech

Speech  Remarks of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump at her 2018 Inauguration Ceremony

As she was sworn in for her third term as State Auditor, Bump highlighted the role her office plays to make government work better.
1/16/2019
  • Office of the State Auditor

Media Contact   for Remarks of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump at her 2018 Inauguration Ceremony

Mike Wessler, Communications Director

Auditor Bump standing next to her mother at her inaugural ceremony.

Thank you all very much for your presence here today. You do me and this office great honor by sharing this ceremony with my family and me. My mother Ruth, sisters Kathleen and Patricia, and I all extend our gratitude to you.

Thank you, Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito, for attending this inaugural ceremony. In this coming together, we demonstrate to those who prefer to see us in conflict that we share a deep respect for and commitment to government, to the daily fulfillment of its essential obligations, and to professionalism within our respective offices.

Thank you, Representative Claire Cronin, and Senator Walter Timilty, my elected representatives to the Great and General Court, for your participation, friendship and public service.

Thank you to all my other colleagues in government, including members of the staff of the Auditor’s office, who are here today, and to Tamika Jacques, our soloist and my friend of many years.

Most especially, thank you to my dear friend and extraordinary power of example within the House of Representatives for the past 36 years, Representative Byron Rushing.

Thank you, Byron, for helping us all better appreciate the African Meeting House. The story of this historic place of fellowship, worship, education, celebration, solace, refuge, and political organizing is one that needs to be more broadly heard and absorbed, since its narrative is as relevant today as it was in the 19th century.

This meeting house and museum chronicle the feats and figures of a community that absorbed the principles and aspirations enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution more deeply and more literally than some of the drafters of those documents could ever have imagined…maybe even more than some of them intended…and certainly even more than some people today are willing to recognize.

Thus, the Meeting House is not a monument to the past but a beacon for the future, for the disparate treatment of persons based on race, creed, national origin, disability, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity has not been eradicated.

Some, here and elsewhere, loudly and crudely espouse the division of persons along just these lines, with the intent of shutting out millions from enjoying the freedoms set forth in our founding documents.

That has not been the truth of your life, however, Byron. At so many times in your career you were the conscience of the House of Representatives, reminding the membership of unrealized dreams and broken promises and the power that that body had, to right these on-going wrongs. I take pride in the number of occasions when I sat in the House chamber that our names were in the same column when the votes were tallied.

More recently, you helped me find my voice when it appeared that the transgender rights bill was going to stall in the legislature. I supported the bill but was uncertain as to whether the State Auditor had a role to play in its advancement.

Then, we sat together at the Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner, and a family recounted its persecution because its parents supported their child’s request to be recognized for her gender identity…I knew in that moment my responsibility. It was with tears in my eyes that I turned and told you that I would make known my support and urge the bill’s passage.

I say thank you, Representative Rushing, for the enormous contributions you have made to social justice, cultural diversity, and informed political discourse. On behalf of all whose cause you have championed, I say thank you.

So, now I stand before you, ready to commence my third term as Massachusetts State Auditor.

All of us who enter government do so, or certainly should do so, with a bit of humility. Whether elected or appointed, our jobs are to serve others, not ourselves. Every goal we set, every program we create, every policy we enact, every dollar we spend must advance the interests of our Commonwealth.

More than that, we are also obligated to consult with others in our deliberations, to create and preserve records of our actions, to subject our actions and our inactions, our successes and our failures to public scrutiny.

This is not merely a moral imperative. It is a legal one.

A Revolutionary pamphleteer by the name of Thomas Paine put it this way, “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”

So when our founders were shaping the government, their grievances against the British crown were translated not just into explicit freedoms like that of assembly and religion, but also into a system of checks and balances to guard against abuses of power, as well as a mandate of accountability by all who act in the name of government so that the people could decide on who was fit to lead their government. 

We take the responsibility of accountability seriously in the Auditor’s office. Adherence to the highest standards of government auditing means we are committed to independence, objectivity, accuracy, and our own continuous improvement. It also means we strive in all our endeavors to model the behavior we expect of our auditees.

The mandate of accountability informs our strategic plan, our use of resources, our audit process, our fraud investigations, and our local mandate determinations.

The imperative that our work advance the interests of the Commonwealth means that we identify not just improper payments, waste, and fraud in state government, but also that we address the root causes of system failures, identify barriers of access to state services, and assist agency efforts to meet the needs of their constituencies effectively and efficiently.

Some think of the Auditor as a government watchdog, and while we are that, we in the Auditor’s office would rather be recognized for our problem-solving abilities than our curled lip or ferocious snarl.  

Our goal is to make government work better and to build public trust through accountability. That is the mission of all the talented and dedicated men and women in the Auditor’s office.

I have been proud to be their leader, and I look forward to calling them my colleagues in service to the people of the Commonwealth for another four years.

Thank you very much.

Media Contact   for Remarks of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump at her 2018 Inauguration Ceremony

  • Office of the State Auditor 

    The Office of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump (OSA) conducts audits, investigations, and studies to promote accountability and transparency, improve performance, and make government work better.
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