The Baldacci administration says it is committed to finding the missing paper trail for $19 million in federal welfare funding, given out, presumably, by the Department of Human Services, and anyway the governor plans to remake the DHS financial staff as part of that department’s merger with the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services. Republicans say this isn’t good enough. They want a larger investigation.

Republicans are correct. DHS should be investigated because one of its staff – unnamed to date – last fall hid $434,000 in a shell game of moving dollars to protect the money from budget cuts, because the department this spring failed to properly notify the elderly that they were about to lose a crucial prescription-drug program and because the missing paperwork on the $19 million does not, as the administration says, merely jeopardize the state’s bond rating and perhaps require Maine to pay the money back to the federal government.

The lack of adequate accounting creates doubt about a state agency in which trust is paramount. No other department is as secretive as DHS and, with children often involved in its cases, no other department has as much reason to be. The public accepts the secrecy as long as the department demonstrates that it is worthy of it.

It is important to observe that the state itself, through Auditor Gail Chase, noticed the absence of paperwork for the $19 million, which is thought to have been spent properly through Temporary Aid to Needy Families but not properly recorded there. DHS staff reportedly is helping the auditor try to solve the mystery; no one is suggesting anything criminal happened and, with the problem occurring over five years, no one is blaming the Baldacci administration.

An investigation, however, could help by being narrowly focused on the running of the department. It would not be an invitation to examine how case workers are doing their jobs, air a constituent’s personal gripe about child-protective services or hear complaints on whether the person answering the phone at the DHS branch office is sufficiently polite. How well, compared with other Maine agencies, is the department run? How well is it run compared with similar departments in other states? How does it account for its finances and why, specifically, did the current problem arise? How could the department be run more effectively once it is merged with BDS?

These are questions, some legislators have said, that could be answered by an Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, which was approved but, with the shortfall, unfunded this year. Nineteen million dollars would fund that program for a decade or more, likely saving many times that amount. OPEGA is a good idea even if DHS were not having difficulties now – the Legislature should have a reliable, nonpartisan office to review the effectiveness of state agencies. It should be funded in the next budget.

But the challenge for the administration is more immediate. It must publicly examine management practices at DHS, within the scope of employee confidentiality, and report what it has found. A bipartisan legislative panel could help reassure the public that the problem has been thoroughly examined, and it could make recommendations to restore trust in a department that is quickly losing it.