It's déjà vu all over again at the State Highway Administration.

The agency is subject of yet another scathing report by the Office of Legislative Audits, which revealed how people who are not held accountable for their actions burn through millions of dollars via waste and fraud without punishment -- or fewer calls for tax hikes to pay for dilapidated roads and bridges.

This audit, like a previous one in 2011, found that the agency shuffled money from account to account to pay for things outside of contracts and made up project costs. It also extended contracts without approval from the Board of Public Works as required.

In a sampling of only four engineering services contracts totaling $17.5 million, auditors "confirmed that SHA could not provide documentation supporting the amount of funds requested."

This echoes findings from a 2011 audit, where OLA uncovered that agency couldn't document why it needed $34 million for four contracts.

This is the government, but $10 million here and $10 million there adds up. With $51.5 million, the total found questionably spent from the two reviews, 7,357 impoverished Baltimore children could go to Catholic schools, where they would all but be guaranteed to graduate and be able to thrive in a job or college.

In another repeat finding, auditors discovered the agency all but took contractors at their word about labor bills, making its motto "trust and don't verify."

One of the more egregious revelations in the report relates to speed monitoring in highway work zones. Auditors found that the SHA did not set standards for photo violations. Only 44 percent of "violations photographed were actually issued a citation because the remaining 56 percent were deemed unacceptable by SHA due to reliability and readability issues." As a result, the state lost about $850,000 of citations because the photos couldn't be read.

Only in Maryland can you set up a speed-monitoring system designed to generate revenue -- and lose money.

Anyone reading the report might also wonder where he or she could sign up to be an SHA contractor, because it appears to take zero experience in relevant work to win a bid. For example, SHA hired a consulting firm to test the speed monitoring equipment, but the unnamed consultant didn't follow SHA's instructions, performed fewer tests than required, didn't have the proper equipment and reported on only a fraction of tests performed.

The end result: "Nevertheless, the consulting firm stated that the observed results fell within acceptable standards, and SHA's technical evaluation team gave an overall 'good' ranking of the contractor for the applicable bid evaluation."

Delegate Gail Bates, a Howard County Republican, proposed legislation last year to hold state agencies responsible for repeat bad audits by withholding a portion of funding. That would be a much- needed first step to holding the SHA and other agencies accountable for misusing taxpayer dollars. Leaders in the General Assembly should make it their first priority before asking for more money from cash-strapped state residents.