When Bill Holland retired in 2015 after 23 years as the longest-serving auditor general in Illinois history, he left behind a letter of advice for his successor. It had a list of two dozen “thoughts, ideas, notions and ramblings,” each of them one line long, because if they were any longer “I won’t write it.”
“I never viewed myself as a policymaker,” was one line, while another read: “I avoided dealing in the ‘hypothetical.’”
“I went to the Capitol as little as possible,” Holland also wrote, as well as, “It will always be your best friends that get you in trouble.”
“As Auditor General, I tried to do the best I could,” he wrote to the current officeholder, Frank Mautino. “History will decide how I performed.”
William J. Holland, who was hailed by Democrats and Republicans for his even-handed, independent and nonpartisan tenure as the state’s top government watchdog in a highly charged political environment, died Saturday following a bout with cancer. He died surrounded by his family at his home in Seattle. Holland, who had a 41-year career in public service, was 72.
Holland was only the state’s second auditor general. The office was created by the 1970 state constitution following a scandal in the 1950s when the elected auditor of public accounts, Orville Hodge, embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Auditor general is the only statewide constitutional office elected by members of the General Assembly. In a testament to his reputation and conduct in office, Holland won the requisite three-fifths approval to hold the office for a 10-year term three consecutive times.
Holland’s service spanned five governors — three Republicans and two Democrats — but his audits spared no one.
It was Holland’s May 2005 audit of the state’s procurement agency that helped lift the curtain on waste and mismanagement in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration three years before the Democratic governor would be arrested by the FBI, impeached by the General Assembly and later imprisoned by a federal judge.
The audit of the Central Management Services agency questioned Blagojevich touting $600 million in unproven taxpayer savings from a cost-saving initiative that involved $69 million in contracts awarded to politically connected vendors. Instead, the audit uncovered $546,650 in taxpayer-funded expenses that included wining and dining state officials, parking at a Chicago Bulls game and a $475 “victory” party for winning the contract.
Blagojevich pushed back on the audit — the first of several audits critical of Blagojevich’s administration — and sought to belittle the work of auditors. But the audit’s findings proved true. Contracts were later canceled and observers knew that in trying to pick a fight with Holland, Blagojevich would be the biggest loser.
When Blagojevich was being impeached, Holland testified before lawmakers about the deficiencies uncovered by his office’s audits of the governor’s administration.
“Mr. Holland’s reputation for fairness and objectivity, his cogent and coherent recitation of the facts and the professionalism of his staff provided the legislature with key evidence upon which it could safely rely in reaching its momentous conclusions,” Mautino wrote in the successful 2022 nomination of Holland to the Hall of Fame of the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers. He also was a former president of the group and also chaired the National State Auditors Association.
In 1994, Holland’s audit of the Department of Children and Family Services found the state paid millions to a politically connected vendor for work that could have been performed more cheaply by state workers. The firm, Management Services of Illinois, would later be found guilty of bilking the state out of nearly $13 million from its contract to reduce welfare costs by identifying Medicaid recipients who had their own health insurance.
It was the only major scandal to touch Republican Gov. Jim Edgar’s administration and led to Edgar becoming the first sitting governor called as a witness to a federal criminal trial in 75 years.
Blagojevich’s successor as governor, Democrat Pat Quinn, launched a $54 million anti-violence initiative in the run up to his successful 2010 election campaign. But a 2014 Holland audit found “pervasive” mismanagement in the program, with grants appearing to be little more than a slush fund to aid Quinn in Chicago neighborhoods. The findings wounded Quinn’s 2014 reelection chances and he lost to Republican Bruce Rauner.
But it wasn’t just state operations that Holland reviewed. A 2016 audit begun by Holland and completed under Mautino found severe lack of oversight by the elected Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage. Lawmakers ordered the audit after the board approved a $762,868 buyout of the college president’s contact, a controversy the Tribune reported about.
Holland eschewed personal publicity and during his tenure held only two news conferences, one to criticize pushback from Blagojevich and the other to announce his retirement in 2015.
“His picture was never on anything. He let the work stand for itself. He believed in his people and their work and he let them go and do what they needed to do,” said Mautino, who spent 18 years on the Legislative Audit Commission that reviewed Holland’s audits prior to becoming his successor.
“He was the gold standard for the office, because he foresaw most possible situations that would occur. That was one of the things that impressed me the most,” Mautino said.
Holland rose to the post after holding previous roles on partisan legislative staffs, including serving as appropriations director for the Illinois House Democrats and, in 1983, becoming chief of staff for the late Senate President Philip J. Rock. His work for Rock had initially raised questions about whether partisanship would seep into his role as auditor general.
“Ironically, as auditor general, he wasn’t partisan at all,” said Judy Erwin, a former state representative who previously had worked with Holland on Rock’s staff when she was press secretary.
“He was smart, absolutely loyal and devoted to Rock,” said Erwin, who recalled Holland had to “weather” the storms of her and other “strong-minded women” who Rock had on his staff.
“He was smart. He could be tough,” Erwin said. And, she said, Holland had to oversee a Senate Democratic caucus of diverse personalities and positions, unlike the lock-step, “Iron Fist” of the House caucus under then-powerful Speaker Michael J. Madigan.
“We always said we were so lucky to have worked for him,” she said.
Holland was born in Joliet and was raised in Kansas. In 1970, he moved to Seattle to attend Seattle University, graduating in 1974 with a degree in public affairs. It was there he met Liz Bernahl, and the two married after graduation. They later divorced but remained friends and raised their three children together.
In addition to enjoying handyman jobs around the house, Holland had a passion for University of Illinois basketball and playing gin rummy. He was considered by family a “dedicated saloon enthusiast.”
Holland was preceded in death by his parents, Edward James Holland and Jane Murdock Holland. He is survived by his children, Meghan Squires, Tom Holland and Jack Holland, and seven grandchildren. A memorial party is being planned for Springfield in the fall.