Questions And Answers With State Auditor And Inspector, Cindy Byrd
Wednesday, March 19th at a special time – 10:00am – Michael and I had the privilege of interviewing Oklahoma’s State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd. Cindy is – hands down – one of my favorite interviews because SHE KNOWS HER STUFF! After being an auditor for over 20 years, she’s got the answers to pretty much any questions you can ask. I’ve pulled several short clips from the interview, but you’ll want to watch the full interview on our Rumble or YouTube channels.
We started talking about the Tulsa Public Schools audit that she just recently finished at the request of the Governor. She talks about that – how does Cindy determine what agencies to audit? Is it up to her? Early on she tells us that she doesn’t have the power to independently audit agencies or political subdivisions. At about 14 minutes in, she tells us who has the authority to have her audit – and that includes taxpayers!
As I mentioned, we didn’t just discuss the TPS audit, there were a number of questions that came in from viewers that Cindy was kind enough to take. Additionally, she had a number of points she was interested in making herself – like this one in the clip below.
Isn’t it interesting how the people who make the laws don’t seem to be terribly interested in the topic of how to make state agencies more transparent with taxpayer dollars? How frustrating! But it gets worse! Cindy tells us in the clip below that even if she finds that a person or entity is breaking the law, there are no laws in Oklahoma that actually hold ‘bad actors’ responsible for the gross mismanagement of tax dollars. How can that be? That’s flat crazy and something that an Oklahoma legislator needs to resolve NEXT YEAR for certain!
In this last clip, Cindy tells viewers not to give up hope! If we’ll report what we know, or think, to be wrong and if we’ll stand up and make our elected officials do what’s right – get Cindy’s office to audit – we’ll get the finances of our Oklahoma government back in order! She believes we can do it, but we have to be citizens active in the process, so stayed involved and educated!