The Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings was established in 1995 to ensure that the public receives fair and independent administrative hearings. The Office has implemented several controls to help ensure that it provides fair, independent, and timely hearings, but it should implement statutorily required training programs, enhance its policies and procedures for ensuring fair and independent hearings, and better comply with statutory hearing time frame requirements. Additionally, the Office’s method for calculating
the rates for its services results in inequitable agency charges, and the Office has further inflated these rates to make up for a shortfall in its State General Fund appropriation. To address these issues, the Office should implement a cost-based rate-setting method to develop consistent rates to charge all agencies for its services, and work with the Legislature to address its State General Fund appropriation shortfall.