OLYMPIA — By the way Rep. Mark Miloscia is stammering with excitement, you'd think he was talking about his deeply held religious beliefs or his passion for protecting the poor.

No, what has the Federal Way Democrat all atwitter is that another person has come to hear about his latest "performance audit" bill. A subject that hits most people like a dose of Nyquil, it has been Miloscia's main mission in politics.

Instead of just proving that they're not overspending, he thinks state agencies should have to prove they're making a real difference in people's lives.

"When I started this, everybody was very uncomfortable about performance audits," Miloscia said. "I had a devil of a time just trying to get a hearing on my bills."

Now, however, performance audits and their even more amorphous cousin — "government accountability" — are among the hottest topics in town.

Forty-five legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, have signed on as co-sponsors to Miloscia's House Bill 1064, which would give broad new powers to state auditors and require government agencies to be graded regularly on their performances.

Miloscia's bill breezed through committee and is scheduled to come up Monday for a vote in the House, where it is expected to pass overwhelmingly. A similar measure is afoot in the Senate. And Gov. Christine Gregoire, who this week rolled out her own stack of government-accountability proposals, said she supports Miloscia's legislation.

Having seen similar efforts fall short year after year, Miloscia is guarding against getting his hopes too high. But he can't hide his giddiness over the fact that his bandwagon has gotten so crowded — he recently told one committee the outpouring of support has left him "tingling."

"I love his enthusiasm," said House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle. "Too many people around here are so jaded."

Miloscia isn't promising the sky with performance audits, but almost. Aside from saving the taxpayers heaps of money, he predicts, they will restore the public's faith in state government — maybe even to the point where voters will tolerate new taxes.

"We'll get results and performance from government agencies that will make us a model for the world," Miloscia said. "I can guarantee that."

Miloscia, 46, became a true believer in performance auditing during his time in the Air Force. A former B-52 bomber pilot, he worked for five years as a contract manager. One of his main duties was auditing contractors' performance and ferreting out those infamous $500 toilet seats and $300 light bulbs.

He eventually left the military because of a religious re-awakening. "I walked in and told my colonel, 'Jesus wants us to love our enemies as ourselves,' " he said. He went to work as vice president for Goodwill Industries in Tacoma. After losing his first two bids for the Legislature, he was elected to the House in 1998.

One of Miloscia's "hobbies" is reading the strategic plans and mission statements for hundreds of state programs. A few years ago, he says, he spent an entire weekend critiquing the plans for each agency at the Department of Social and Health Services, then sent his findings to the department and the governor.

"They didn't like it because I failed half of them," Miloscia said.

In the Legislature, Miloscia has preached tirelessly about the need for performance audits.

"He sort of has that hamster-in-the-wheel approach," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, a fellow Democrat.

Still, he faces many skeptics. Some say performance audits are too subjective — what constitutes good performance? Others are leery about handing too much power to State Auditor Brian Sonntag. As an elected official, they fear, he would use his clout to generate headline-grabbing audit findings. "That is a valid concern," Miloscia said. "But I think the best managers have nothing to fear from even the worst audit."

Sonntag's office has nearly 140 auditors who keep an eye on state and local-government agencies. But they have the authority to do only financial and legal-compliance audits.

Without the authority to evaluate performance, Sonntag said, he can't force agencies to answer the fundamental question: "Did you meet the needs of the people you serve?"

The Legislature has the power to order performance audits, and over the past 15 years the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee has completed dozens of them. Since 1990, the committee says, its audits have generated nearly $420 million in savings.

That's wonderful, says Miloscia, but it's just a fraction of what the state could be saving.

Sonntag agrees.

"We've long advocated for a top-to-bottom scrub of state government," he said.

Under Miloscia's bill, Sonntag would be turned loose to do an initial performance "review" of every state agency to identify programs that warrant a full audit. Sonntag figures that would take nearly a year to complete.

The bill also calls for a citizen panel that would work with Sonntag in deciding which programs to audit. But Sonntag's office would not actually do the audits; that task would be contracted out.

The rising popularity of performance audits in Olympia is not surprising to Seattle pollster Stuart Elway.

"My take for the last 10 years has been that this so-called tax revolt has been more about accountability than about dollars — this feeling that our money is being wasted," Elway said.

A recent poll suggested nearly half of the state's residents agree that "state government would have more money than it needs if it would just eliminate waste."

For the past two years, Miloscia's performance-audit legislation has passed the House unanimously before dying in the Senate. But Senate leaders say its chances are much better this year.

Before last fall's election, 70 legislators signed a pledge put out by the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, promising to support performance-audit legislation.

Lawmakers have an added incentive to pass a performance-audit bill this session: initiative promoter Tim Eyman. Eyman this week began gathering signatures for his own performance-audit proposal, Initiative 900. It would direct about $10 million a year to Sonntag's office for audits of both state and local agencies.

Eyman calls Miloscia's approach "toothless" because it leaves legislators in control of how much money to spend on performance audits. And he said the audits wouldn't be truly independent because the citizen oversight panel would be made up of people appointed by the Legislature and the governor.

Eyman said legislators want to keep auditors on a short leash because they fear embarrassing the Olympia establishment.

"Well, audits by their very definition should be an intimidating, embarrassing experience," Eyman said.

But Miloscia and Sonntag said Eyman's proposal goes too far and would result in a mountain of unneeded audits. While Miloscia agrees some agencies might be embarrassed by audit results, he said that shouldn't be a goal, as Eyman suggests.

"I completely disagree with that," Miloscia said. "Audit is a tool to improve, not to intimidate and destroy."

Ralph Thomas: 360-943-9882 or rthomas@seattletimes.com