SB 646 Summary: Recovery Audits for Government Overpayments of Tax Dollars Act

• Authorizes the State Auditor and Inspector to contract with private consultants to conduct recovery audits identifying overpayments made by state agencies to individuals, vendors, and other entities.

• Defines "overpayment" to include failure to meet eligibility requirements, duplicate payments, invoice errors, failure to apply discounts/rebates, non-compliance with purchasing agreements, and other inadvertent errors.

• Mandates recovery audits for state agencies with annual expenditures exceeding $25 million and for agencies with audit findings related to internal control weaknesses in payments and contracts.

• Allows consultant compensation based on a percentage of recovered amounts and permits consultants to pursue legal action to recover overpayments, with a 90-day waiting period after payment before audit can begin.

• Requires the State Auditor to provide recovery audit reports to the Governor, state budget officials, and legislature annually by December 31, with implementation rules to be adopted for contracting to begin by January 1, 2014.