Saturday, July 28, 2007

Phil Bryant--Where Are the Audits?

Phil Bryant has bragged what a great job he has done as State Auditor. He even boasts as to how much he has brought in to the state treasury from all the funds he has recovered. www.cottonmouthblog.blogspot.com has carefully reviewed Bryant's record as State Auditor. I strongly suggest you go to that blog and read it. But as a CPA who carefully has observed reports on the State Auditor's office, I'd like to point out a few things:

1. Why was there no audit in any year for the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi? The PHM spent over one hundred million dollars in five years and not once was there an audit.
2. Why was there no audit of the failed Mississippi Beef (mooooo) Plant fiasco? His office allowed the appropriation for this white elephant. Did he ever think of having a thorough review of where the money was going and scream when it looked like the Plant would be a turkey?
3. He claims he has recovered twelve million dollars from misappropriation of funds during his ten years as State Auditor. But that has been over a TEN-YEAR PERIOD. Wow. A lot of the recovery has not been due to corruption, but a misapplication of funds.
4. There has been a decrease in the amount of quality audits during his ten years. Cottonmouth has extensively written on this and gave a link to the PEER report.
5. Before June 30th, turnover in the State Auditor's office was an eye-popping 82%. But on June 3oth, four more experienced employees in the OAS quit. They "had their fill with Phil".
6. The NSAA audit of the OAS (peer audit of the audits completed) shows the quality of audits is terrible. Before Bryant, the OAS has always had good audit reports. This is the FIRST TIME FOR A BAD AUDIT REPORT!!

My sources tell me morale is so low in the OAS they are literally counting the days when Bryant steps down. He has politicized the office and has made it a fiefdom for his own selfish political ambitions. Quality audits and professionalism have taken a back seat to one man's ego and political aspirations.

Do you seriously want this man to be YOUR Lt. Governor?

4 comments:

John Wesley Leek said...

I think this is likely his biggest public weakness. Did he really do much of a job as Auditor if he and his office really didn't audit very much?

elizabeth15 said...

It would be IMPOSSIBLE for the Auditor's office to audit every dollar the state spends. Phil did a fantastic job, though, auditing the amount that was possible.

He is my--and many other Mississippians'--choice for Lt. Governor.

elizabeth15 said...

JOHN GOODMAN!!! CAN YOU WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN PHIL BRYANT????!???!???

Jimmy said...

Elizabeth,

I am curious as to what office you worked at in the Audit Department. Mr. Goodman appears to have good sources. All you supply in this argument is an emotional response.