There’s an interesting brouhaha over Michigan’s Office of Auditor General and its budget for 2025.

One of the OAG budget lines has a placeholder, which if not filled, would end up cutting the agency’s funding by 28 percent, or $8.3 million.

The office, itself, is longstanding and important. Established in 1836, the Auditor General is the chief fiscal officer of our state. Appointed by Legislature and peopled by certified public accountants. It — with exacting impartiality — is charged with the weighty task of rooting out problems in our government.

And it, no doubt, has. In recent days, the OAG found stagger-worthy inventory issues at Michigan Liquor Control Commission (62,000 bottles lost); a 4 percent shortfall in fingerprinting school contract workers; and longtime lags (19 months) in completing discrimination investigations in the Department of Civil Rights.

But even though the office itself is “non-partisan,” detractors call some of its work “misleading” and say current Auditor General Douglas Ringler (originally appointed under Gov. Rick Snyder) is doing “Republican bidding,” according to the Michigan Advance.

A report on Unemployment Insurance Agency claims processing during the pandemic was criticized for deliberately “lacking context” and another, in reporting nearly 2,386 more COVID-related deaths in long-term care centers than the state, may have tailored the report to its Republican requestor.

Ringler needs to publicly reconcile any errors or problems and make double-sure that any reports carrying the OAG seal are objective and fully accurate. Only bulletproof work and personal integrity can withstand the partisan blows of Lansing. That office needs to withstand being buffeted by Lansing’s changing winds, as its work — ferreting out waste, inefficiencies and fraud — is fundamental to good governance.

As journalists, we know there’s a price to pay for bearing unwelcome truths — but that price should be popularity at dinner parties, not $8.3 million. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s use of the budget as a way to browbeat OAG to kiss the ring only underscores the need for it.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle