are GAGAS. GAGAS § 1.13(a) states: “The term ‘audit’ includes both financial and performance audits.” Petitioners discuss the analyses in Klenk and McCall, and they argue that historical practice further supports the Auditor General’s authority to conduct the performance audits. In this case, Petitioners assert, it is undisputed that the current Auditor General and his predecessors, including Respondent Hafer when she was in that post, have conducted numerous performance audits. This historical practice is evidence of the Department’s longstanding interpretation of its authority, and courts grant “strong deference” to an agency’s interpretation of a statute that it is charged to execute. Bethenergy Mines Inc. v. Department of Environmental Protection, 676 A.2d 711 (Pa.Cmwlth.1996) (<HOLDING>). Thus Petitioners contend that they have
holding that a courts prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion holding that if precise issue is not clear in statute reviewing court must not simply impose its own construction but must determine whether agencys construction is permissible holding that to negate coverage under an exclusion insurer must show that its construction is the only construction that could fairly be placed thereon holding that claim construction is an issue of law for the court not a question of fact for the jury holding that claim construction is a matter of law for the court to determine