The State's Comptroller has no kind words for Gov. Walker, but takes 'tremendous' satisfaction in being able to produce the financial information sought by the executive branch

Kleine and I prevailed in the primary and were elected in November.

Q. It's as a member of the General Assembly that you made your mark, and that opened the door to statewide office for you. What actually led to your nomination as the Republican candidate for State Comptroller?

A. Well, my first term in the legislature was rather uneventful, as is the case with most freshman legislators, but in my second term I became chairman of the house resolutions subcommittee of the Executive Committee. Shortly thereafter, on June 13, 1969, one Sherman Skolnick appeared on the scene with allegations that at least one and perhaps two State Supreme Court justices had received campaign contributions of some type at the same time that the Theodore Isaacs case was being heard by the Supreme Court. I was the chief sponsor of a resolution to investigate the Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois judiciary generally. We did that during 1969 and then appeared before the Constitutional Convention in 1970 and urged successfully the adoption of several articles that now appear in the Constitution.

In 1971. I was in charge of the committee investigating the Paul Powell "shoeboxes" which were discovered on October 10. 1970. My activities with what became House Governmental Ethics Committee led to my sponsorship of House Bill 3700, which contained provisions for economic ¦ disclosure by candidates and officeholders, and the disclosure of political contributions and expenditures by committees and candidates. Of course, the candidates' part lost entirely, but the \ economic disclosure was enacted at least in some form. I presume that that laid the groundwork for my being considered the type of candidate who should run statewide.

In conversation with Governor Ogilvie and other party leaders, it was determined that I should run for the Office of Secretary of State. Shortly after I made my announcement that I was a candidate for that office, Ed Kucharski independently made his own move for that office and created a great deal of confusion, in my mind at least. But after lots of discussions with county chairmen and Republican State central committeemen and friends and advisors, I finally decided that one thing we did not need was a primary battle for Secretary of State because there were just not sufficient funds to conduct both types of campaigns. So I gave the Office of Comptroller careful consideration and decided that it might be a better office than Secretary of State for me to run for anyway. A t the time I made the move for Secretary of State, I did not know anything about the Office of Comptroller. I had no idea of what might be involved there, but after I reviewed it a little bit I thought there was a potential therefor doing the same things that interested me in government in the first place — trying to purify the way the Stale does its business.

Q. How would you describe the Comptroller's Office?

A. The Office of Comptroller can best be described as the business office of State government. In a way it's the taxpayer's watchdog, because no Slate funds can be disbursed without my approval or deposited to the State treasury without my approval.

The formal role of the Comptroller in the Illinois financial setup, where we have a Comptroller, a Treasurer, and Auditor General, is that the Treasurer is the investment banker of the State and custodian of the funds in the treasury. The Comptroller, as a check and balance on the treasury, orders the receipts into the treasury and disbursements from the treasury and preaudits all expenditures for illegality and propriety. The Auditor General, on the other hand, fulfills the traditional task of post-auditing, ascertaining whether or not the financial details balance and also whether or not operational agencies and offices have conformed or complied with the regulations for those agencies.

Q. You have your law degree from Northwestern (1957), but you're not a Certified Public Accountant (C.P.A.). Don't you think that should be required for the Comptroller's Office?

A. It might be desirable that he be an economist or Ph.D. in finance, an authority on finance. But as it turns out, my law background has been extremely helpful, particularly in creating a new office where interpretations must be made of the constitutional mandate and of the 1972 Comptroller Act. as well as the Finance Act and appropriation bills. In my opinion, my six years as a legislator and my profession as a lawyer give me excellent qualifications for the office. Now if I didn't also have the ability to administer, it probably wouldn't mean too much that I have the other two backgrounds. Administration is what really is required to be the chief executive officer of the Office of Comptroller.

Q. After your election, how did you feel? Were you overwhelmed at the task that lay before you?

A. No. Taking over the office during the transition period was in retrospect a very, very serious challenge. However, the significance of the challenge is somewhat nullified by the fact that you just get so deeply immersed in what you are doing that you don't realize what a challenge it is. Now that we have successfully implemented the office — the statutory deadline was July 1, 1974 — I can look back now and realize that in many places I was indeed very, very lucky in the decisions that I made. It's an extremely satisfying office because — I'll put it this way — money is the life blood of the government and to be able to centralize, as we have, all of the financial transactions of the State of Illinois in one office gives us the ability to produce financial information that has always been sought by financial decision-makers, the legislature and the Governor, hut which has never been available before, and that is a tremendous satisfaction.

Q. You're one of the top, if not the

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