SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers approved the appointment Wednesday of a new leader of the state agency tasked with conducting audits of other departments that fall under state government.

Christopher Meister, the executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, was approved 51-0 in the Senate and 97-1 in the House to succeed Frank Mautino, who is retiring as the state’s auditor general.

The legislative appointment begins May 1, when Meister will take over as auditor general, a constitutional office tasked with reviewing the use and management of public funds by state agencies from the Illinois Department of Corrections to the Illinois Department of Human Services. The office reviews financial records for agencies, as well as compliance with state and federal laws and program performance.

Under the leadership of Mautino, a former Democratic state representative from Spring Valley who has served as auditor general for a decade, the office last year uncovered how Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration vastly underestimated the cost and attraction of programs that have provided state-funded health insurance for immigrants who are not citizens. One of those programs, which provided Medicaid-style health care for middle-aged noncitizens, was cut by Pritzker last year to save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2024, Mautino’s office revealed that the Illinois Department of Employment Security, which is charged with distributing unemployment benefits, fell short in administering claims filed during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving auditors unable to determine if more than $6 million wound up in the appropriate hands. At the time, the audit drew more criticism of IDES after it had previously come under scrutiny for how it administered the distribution of unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic.

Another report from Mautino’s office, in 2022, reviewed a COVID outbreak that killed 36 elderly military veterans at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home in 2020, showing the state’s Public Health Department didn’t show up at the LaSalle home until 11 days after the outbreak began. The report blasted the agency for failing to “identify and respond to the seriousness of the outbreak.”

According to the Illinois Finance Authority’s website, Meister oversees financial products that include tax-exempt conduit bonds for nonprofits, industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors, and helps provide resources for economic development and climate energy-related projects.

As a self-funded agency that doesn’t rely on taxpayer funding, the agency since 2009 under Meister’s leadership has attracted more than $45 billion in private capital to issue bonds for various projects throughout the state, according to the website.

From 2016 to 2022, Meister served as a member of the Environmental Financial Advisory Board for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and in 2012, he was chosen as a member of the inaugural Edgar Fellows program, which promotes bipartisan leadership in Illinois government and is named after its founder, the late Republican Gov. Jim Edgar.