What is SandraGate?

1. Sandra Thomas is running for Missouri State Auditor. Yes, there has been a primary, but she is not the candidate yet because one of her opponents is calling for a recount. So maybe Sandra will be the nominee. Maybe not.

2. Currently, Sandra is County Auditor in Platte County, Missouri. That's just north of Kansas City -- a hustling, bustling little county where she has "served" for about 12 years.

3. Sandra likes to tout the awards she has won as a county auditor, but lately she's been having a problem.

4. What's the problem? She keeps losing track of the money! This last year it was $195,000 and the year before that it was $17,000.

Here's my favorite article on recent developments, taken from her local newspaper last week, The Platte County Landmark:




Between the Lines
by Ivan FoleyLandmark editor

Platte County bookkeepingsituation has becomea comedy of errors
Posted 8/8/06
Just when you thought it wasn't possible, Platte County's bookkeeping fiasco turned even more bizarre on Friday afternoon when Sandra Thomas, Platte County auditor and state auditor candidate, sent out one of the strangest press releases you'll ever see.
I'm sure you've seen those movies where cops are standing by the scene of a major catastrophe and are trying to clear passersby from the area by saying: "Move along, folks, move along. There's nothing to see here."
That's basically what Thomas' email said, or at least tried to say. One would have to be pretty naive to fully consume the goods being spewed by Thomas and county treasurer Bonnie Brown in that press release. It was an attempt to try to take public attention away from the train wreck that has occurred in Platte County's bookkeeping ledger while Thomas closed out the final days of a campaign for the Republican nomination for state auditor.
Strangely, Thomas has gone from first denying any involvement or knowledge of the screw-up to suddenly trying to claim she rode in on a great white horse, found the discrepancies, checked the oil, kicked the tires, shook hands, kissed babies, and saved the world.
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Friday's press release, in a word, was ridiculous.
Thomas and county treasurer Bonnie Brown claim the discrepancy in the books, where the bank was saying Platte County has $195,000 less than the county books show, has been found. "Finding problems like this are exactly why we perform an annual audit. No money is missing or ever was missing. The problem was caused by simple clerical errors made in the preparation of the bank reconciliation. These errors have been identified and corrected."
Wow. The Between the Lines BS meter is jumping off the charts.
No money was missing? Again, this is semantics, as we've discussed previously in this column space. When for 10 months you can't account for $195,000, you have "missing" money that needs to be accounted for. That doesn't necessarily mean anything was stolen, and no media outlet to my knowledge said the money was stolen or that there was any wrongdoing of any type. What has been said in this column space all along is that there are legitimate questions of competency and of disclosure.
Does it take 10 months and a $2,500 special external audit to find "simple clerical errors?" If it does, then we do have some major simpletons in charge of our tax dollars.
The county commission had to hire an external auditor to take care of a process that should have been completed in-house by county officials.
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One glaring piece of the press release that is certainly humorous is that Brown and Thomas contradict one another. Thomas' quote says the problems were clerical errors. Brown says it was a matter of "accounting adjustments that have been identified."
Well which is it? Or is it none of the above? The outside auditor, who likely is sorry he ever agreed to play the role of Platte County's financial proctologist, is mysteriously not quoted in this declaration of independence.
Lordy, Brown and Thomas couldn't even keep from contradicting one another in their own bogus press statement. That's when you know you're watching a circus act.
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Poor county treasurer Bonnie Brown. Sweet person. But she simply doesn't get it.
First, she fails to see that the county bank accounts are properly reconciled for 10 months. Then she tries to cover the confusion by asking the presiding commissioner to authorize the use of $195,000 from general fund reserves to balance the ledger. Now she speaks this bizarre quote as her claim to fame, as if she has been absolved of any blame in this comedy of errors: "It just confirms that there has been no wrongdoing in the treasurer's office and there is absolutely no money missing."
So there was no wrongdoing. Nobody ever reported there was. There certainly was some shoddy work. How can a treasurer and/or county auditor lose track of $195,000?
Even worse than that, there is this major issue of disclosure. Brown is the only one claiming to have had knowledge of the $195,000 discrepancy for months, so why did she not report it? If it wasn't the fault of her office, as she now claims, why not tell the auditor's office about it? As you'll recall, the deputy auditor says the auditor's office knew nothing of Brown's problem reconciling accounts until July. Until then, it apparently was Brown's little secret.
Deputy auditor Ruby Maline last week told The Landmark that if Brown had brought the matter to her attention when Brown first was unable to reconcile the bank accounts, Maline could have found the problem and the public mess could have been avoided.
Brown is portrayed to be grinning like the cat that just ate the canary. She thinks because there is no "wrongdoing" in her office that she escapes without scrutiny.
Hello, Bonnie? Is there anybody home?
We expect our public officials to be law-abiding citizens, don't we? If we didn't, we could just pick our next county treasurer from a police lineup.
Most folks assumed all along nobody in Brown's office had walked out the door with $195,000 stuffed in their pockets. What taxpayers are concerned about are issues of competency and disclosure. Why did the mistakes occur in the first place and why did Brown wait for months to let anyone know her office was unable to reconcile the bank accounts?
It's inexcusable and embarrassing, no matter how Brown, Thomas and their supporters try to spin it.
Will the public ever be able to trust the numbers spewed from the treasurer's office? How many other special outside audits will we have to pay for to find other mistakes?
Care about your tax dollars? I recommend you ignore the suggestion to "move along, move along, there's nothing to see here." With Brown now desperately trying to pass all blame to Thomas, and with Thomas now on her way to the general election for state auditor, don't look for this issue to die anytime soon.