When I took office as Texas Comptroller, I vowed that innovation would be our daily companion. With that in mind, I introduce Texas Innovator, a monthly newsletter designed to be a toolbox for the 21st century. Individual Texans, state and local governments and educators are among those who can benefit from the best practices, breakthroughs, new technologies and new ways of doing things as presented in these pages.
Businesses spend millions of dollars every year to identify opportunities for innovation.
In these pages, we help by targeting opportunities on a local, state, national and international scale. Many of the reforms that have taken place during the first months of my administration came about as a result of studying the best practices in the public and private sectors and tailoring them to fit the Lone Star State. For example, managed self-audits with state oversight are in practice in a few other states. We analyzed that practice, designed the most appropriate way for it to work in Texas and presented recommendations to the 1999 Texas Legislature. The Legislature approved legislation for managed self-audits under my office's supervision, which should free the Comptroller's office to concentrate on problem cases and pursue tax cheats more aggressively.