Early shootout in state auditor's race

    The state auditor’s race heated up Wednesday when Republican Sandra Thomas moved to deflect mounting criticism of her performance as Platte County auditor by hurling accusations against her opponent.

  Thomas, speaking at a news conference in Kansas City, denied that she was in any way responsible for accounting errors that led to a $195,864 discrepancy between Platte County’s financial statements and its cash in the bank.

  Thomas blamed Platte County’s treasurer, a former county commissioner and even the outside auditor who eventually straightened out the problems – even though Thomas is the county’s chief accounting officer.

    Platte County commissioners eventually authorized $2,500 to pay a private accounting firm to unravel the mystery. The outside audit found that no cash was missing, but that four accounting errors led to erroneous financial statements, including three mistakes by Thomas’ office.

  Thomas, who has boasted of her status as a certified public accountant, said the discrepancies were typical for any county that has four agencies posting deposits and drawing money.

  “If you look at anyone’s books, you will find things like this,” she said.

     But Thomas didn't call the news conference to defend herself. She went on the attack, saying a much bigger issue is a potential scandal brewing in Buchanan County, where Susan Montee, the Democratic nominee for state auditor, is the county auditor.

  The case involves a county official – known as the public administrator – who handles the finances of orphans, the infirm and people unable to care for themselves. The office of Public Administrator Bonnie Sue Lawson was raided last week by state officials investigating the misappropriation of clients’ funds. She resigned this week.

  Thomas said Montee should have caught any misappropriation of funds by auditing the private accounts that Lawson handled. Thomas described Lawson as a “close friend and contributor” to Montee, whose failure to audit the accounts showed “her incompetence and failure to adequately serve the people of Missouri.”

Montee said the Public Administrator is overseen by the Buchanan County Circuit Court and the county auditor has no jurisdiction over private accounts.

  “This feels like a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the problems in Platte County,” Montee said. “I know Sandra Thomas knows better, that I don’t have the authority to audit (the public administrator), so she is intentionally distorting the role of the county auditor.”

   Montee said she passed complaints about Lawson on to Judge Daniel Kellogg, who assured her that he was aware of the complaints and they were being investigated.

  Lawson contributed $100 to Montee’s campaign on Dec. 7. Montee said considered it acceptable because the complaints were mere allegations. After last week’s raise on Lawson’s office, Montee said, the contribution was returned.

  Vic Hurlbert, a Republican who is auditor in Clay County and president of the Missouri Auditor’s Association, agreed that Montee had no obligation to audit the public administrator’s office.

  “The Circuit Court ought to be responsible for this,” Hurlbert said. “It’s really them who dropped the ball.”

Get more of the  story in Thursday's Star.

Posted by Kit Wagar

Comments

[FarRight]

Odd that Kit unintentionally forgot to mention the amount of money, isn't it?

Could that be because we are talking about millions of dollars? Hmmm...one wonders.

Its also odd, because as I read it...neither candidate is actually at fault for anything. One had a bookkeeping error and the other apparently isn't responsible for much of anything in Buchanan County.

Instead the Star has declared Thomas guilty and Montee a victim of a right-wing attack. I love the balanced political news from those crack Star reporters.

Hey Kit, there is a reason the Washington Post hasn't called.

[toad]

has anyone seen this?

http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2006/whats_up_with_claire_mccaskill

[SandraGate]

It is pretty clear from the statutes and facts of the case that Sandra Thomas has made some mistakes that lead to the county losing track of $195,000 for many months (facts stemming largely from an independent auditor performed by one of Sandra's contributors). Why can't she just admit it and move on? Sad, sad, sad.

Even wore, she's taken a incident in Buchanan County that has nothing to do with the county auditor and is trying to hang it around her neck (according to the county prosecutor and the attorney for some of those who may have been wrong and, uh, the statutes).

Over and over, we see that Sandra just does not have what it takes to track the finances of her own county, much less those of the state.

[SPSLE]

FarRight, four years ago were you also claiming that Al Hanson just had a bookkeeping error? Thomas' conduct is certainly not fraud, but there is clearly "fault".

First, she claims to have set up the account in an erroneous manner at the direction of a county commissioner (he denies giving any directions to her). This means either that she does not know proper accounting or, more likely, that she does whatever an elected official she perceives to be in a higher position tells her to do. Since both State Auditor and County Auditor positions are supposed to be independent, blaming another elected official means she didn't do her job.

Second, she blames the County Treasurer for not informing her of the accounting discrepancies; do we need to discuss what the title "Auditor" means? In the alternative, should we inquire why relations are so bad between two people of different parties, at a county level, that the taxpayers have to suffer?

Third, regardless of fault, Thomas didn't show up at her elected office throughout the audit; she only showed up for the auditor's report. I don't care if she is 100% perfect in this matter, not showing up is unforgivably stupid (didn't Charlie Wheeler get crucified for not casting votes?).

Fourth, what I find particularly ironic, the auditors who gently chastised her for incompetence (oh, and whom she also blamed for the errors, which occurred before their audit) had also contributed the maximum amount to her campaign for State Auditor.

However, FarRight, what costs Sandra my vote is the fact that she sacrificed her personal and professional integrity on the advice of Jeff Roe, by blaming everyone she could and then accusing her opponent of incompetence for failing to do something the opponent had no authority to do. Bush has the guts to say, "I'm the decider" and take the blame, but this most recent (de)-generation of Republicans now professes, "I'm the auditor, it's the fault of someone else and...oh, look,...over there."

[Patricia]

So, Toad, are you paid by Talent and the MO Republican committee to start this whispering campaign? Or by Jeff Roe? Because it's very clear that's what you're doing.

For anyone who doesn't know, a whispering campaign is when a Republican starts circulating unfounded rumors. Rumors that can't be documented nor proven. But they make a good dirty whisper. A good dirty way of fighting.

An example is the whispering campaign begun during a past presidential campaign by Karl Rove and crew that John McCain's adopted black daughter was his real daughter.

OK, Toad, you've tried to start one on Claire. My bet is that the people who post to this blog are smart enough not to believe and moral enough not to spread.

P.S. If "Toad" is your pseudonym, Jeff Roe, it's a great one.

Here's a link to Roe's latest dirty deeds. "How Would Jesus Campaign?" http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/columnists/barbara_shelly/15299236.htm

His previous renown came from dirty tricks when working for Graves.
"Goon Squad"
http://www.pitch.com/Issues/2004-05-13/news/feature_print.html

So can candidates make any spurious claim at all and have it show up in the newspapers? Isn't there some need for their to be truth? It's sad that Kit and other reporters didn't scoff at the sheer desperation by a Republican candidate who's campaign is sinking fast. Voters should take a good luck at Thomas and how's she's campaign. She's drowning in the truth, so she starts throwing around lies. Shame on her and shame on the Star for even printing the garbage being spewed by a campaign in free-fall.

[toad]

Whisper campaign??? This was on KCTV 5 when Dave Helling was a reporter there. Far from a whisper campaign.

If I was a democrat I would hate seeing the link too.

[toad]

Apparently anyone who posts on this site that is not a wildly partisan democrat is Jeff Roe.

[smhartley]

It can be assumed that people who frequently post on Jeff Roe's site are interested in what Jeff Roe has to say. It can therefore be assumed that if you are at all interested in what Jeff Roe has to say, you likely share an ideological perspective, and are likely not a, "wildly partisan democrat" but hail from the other end. There are many similarities between the Roe and Red State sites' propagation of this dead and largely irrelevant McCaskill story and the spamming of this blog by smartie and toad.

Toad, is there a correlating video documenting the number of drug felons McCaskill put in prison while she was a prosecutor?

[smhartley]

In addition, shall we whisper a little about #6, as we fill our gastanks to the tune of $40+ dollars a pop?

Top Recipients - Oil & Gas Donation
Top Senate Candidates

Election cycle: 2006

1 Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX) $237,461

2 Santorum, Rick (R-PA) $180,090

3 Burns, Conrad (R-MT) $168,275

4 Cornyn, John (R-TX) $136,000

5 Allen, George (R-VA) $128,900

6 Talent, James M (R-MO) $108,970

7 Kyl, Jon (R-AZ) $80,700

8 Lott, Trent (R-MS) $79,000

9 Thomas, Craig (R-WY) $71,000

10 Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT) $61,950

http://opensecrets.org/industries/recips.asp?Ind=E01&cycle=2006&recipdetail=S&Mem=N&sortorder=U

[SandraGate]

Thought it was interesting that some of the articles cite Dick Hurlbert -- Republican Clay County Auditor and president of the County Auditors Association. Any time he is quoted, he points out that Montee is right and Thomas is wrong. Sounds like a pretty non-partisan guy to me.

www.SandraGateBlogspot.com