Secretary of State Dennis Richardson will ask the 2019 Legislature to finance a much-needed boost to his office’s auditing abilities by creating a three-person team to focus on Medicaid programs. Though the cost might seem high — some $779,797 in the 2019-21 budget cycle — it’s a pittance compared to the $9 billion in state and federal funds spent annually spent on the Oregon Health Plan.

Richardson’s office released an audit of OHP in late 2017, and what auditors found wasn’t pretty. The Oregon Health Authority, which oversees OHP, had never audited the accuracy of medical bills paid by the coordinated care organizations that oversee medical care for most of the state’s roughly 1 million OHP patients. Moreover, while six of the 16 CCOs found not a single misspent dollar, five each found mistaken payments of between $1 million and $5 million.

That’s in addition to news from Richardson’s office earlier in 2017 that OHP eligibility checks were long overdue. When they finally were completed in August 2017, almost half of those checked were not eligible for the program. That alone cost some $88 million in state and federal tax dollars.

Richardson’s request for less than $1 million over a two-year period pales in comparison to those numbers.

Thanks in no small part to the Oregon Health Plan, more than 90 percent of Oregonians have health care coverage of one sort or another, one of the best rates in the country. Yet that coverage comes with a big price tag, and it behooves the state to make sure the money spent on OHP is being spent wisely and tracked carefully.

Those are jobs for auditors, and Richardson believes it will take three of them to do the job justice. He should be given the money needed to get the job done right.