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!
Yesterday, (6/27/23) State Auditor and Inspector, Cindy Byrd, released the federally-mandated Single Audit of federal funds provided to Oklahoma, covering $14 BILLION dollars of expenditures.
According to the press release issued by Byrd’s office;
Proper system controls were offered by the Digital Wallet vendor to limit the families’ purchases to education-related items but those controls were declined by the individual placed in charge of the BTG program. We found that 1.7 million dollars was spent on various non-educational items such as kitchen appliances, power tools, furniture and entertainment.
This, of course, is news that should be met with considerable frustration by ANY taxpayer. However, as ROPE has been advocates of student privacy since our Common Core days, we were EXTREMELY troubled to also read this in Auditor Byrd’s press release;
The outside individuals representing special interest groups requested that grant applications be customized to include two questions asking whether the student had a disability and/or an Individualized Education Program (IEP). To submit their applications, families were forced to provide their child’s personal information which was never an eligibility requirement for these awards. The State of Oklahoma failed to ensure that private information collected from families followed the guidelines of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). These outside groups were allowed to collect and view personal student information without a contract; therefore, we do not know where this personal student information is being stored or how it is being used by these outside parties. From emails, the special interest groups also invited an outside “data scientist” to review the information collected from the BTG program.
According to the audit, “The state abdicated its responsibility to administer and oversee the GEER funds and placed outside individuals in the role of program decision-makers of the GEER award without a contract to govern their involvement.” “These individuals neither had the authority nor did they meet federal qualifications to administer or oversee these grant funds, Consequently, federal guidelines, compliance requirements and mandates to retain records were not followed.”
So the bottom line is this – a direct quote from SAI Byrd herself – again from the single audit press release;
“This was a tangled web of government agencies, non-profit organizations and non-government individuals representing special interest groups managing millions of tax dollars with no contracts and no written agreements. Sadly, millions of tax dollars were misspent because certain individuals who were put in charge of managing these programs seemingly ignored federal grant guidelines.”
So who are these “special interest groups” found to be a part of the ‘tangled web’ described by the Auditor?
Byrd’s press release did not provide names, however, an article in The Frontier describing the groups pushing ‘school choice’ in 2022 states that Every Kid Counts – the organization over which then-secretary of Education, now State Superintendent Walters presided before he was elected – was involved in distributing GEER funds and Jennifer Carter, who runs the Oklahoma Chapter of Betsy DeVos’ American Federation of Children and has her own consulting agency Libertas Consulting LLC, “also helped pass on inquiries from parents about the voucher program”.
Carter is a long fixture in Oklahoma education politics including a short tenure as former State Superintendent Janet Barresi’s Chief of Staff. She left the position after a media kerfuffle that resulted after she called Oklahoma Superintendents “dirt bags” – and while she is most probably not wrong in several cases, a better platform and terminology might have created less issue. Carter is also married to Ray Carter, essayist for the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (OCPA).
I will be engaging with the SAI’s office to determine who all this “tangled web” includes over the coming weeks.
Many people repeat the term popularized by our previous president, “The Swamp”, but aren’t really sure who/what makes up “The Swamp”. In our way of thinking, “The Swamp” is a term that describes those individuals – and organizations – who either work as government influencers or government ‘policy’ makers throughout their lives, across elected officials and administrations, dealing more in the power of influence than the principles of good government.
It seems entirely possible, that the “tangled web” described by our Oklahoma SAI, may really paint a portrait of our own Oklahoma Swamp. Until that time, what we do know is that MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars have been misused and misspent in the pursuit of EDUCATION in Oklahoma and that is NOT OK.
Dishonest and disingenuous mailers are suddenly being sent out state-wide against current state auditor Cindy Byrd. According to Nolan Clay of The Oklahoman, candidate McQuillen has filed bankruptcy twice and is not a licensed accountant – unlike Byrd.
A recent article in the Tulsa World by Randy Krehbiel did a wonderful job of summarizing the dark money being poured into the race against Cindy Byrd.
According to Krehbiel:
An Ethics Commission filing shows that Truth PAC, based in Oklahoma City, bought $280,596.60 in television time for McQuillen earlier this week. It has reserved more than $680,000 in air time, but it is not clear whether all of that is for the auditor and inspector campaign.
Records show that Truth PAC was created June 9 with Matthew Parker as chairman and treasurer. Parker is a business partner of Fount Holland.
The filings do not show the source of the $280,000.
The mailers carry the stamp of Holland and Parker’s company, CAMP, and the name “American Values First” and a Tulsa address that is a box at an office supply store.
Who else is CAMP working for? Chances are many of the mailers you’re getting in your mailbox have their sticker on it. Just today I received CAMP mailers:
against John O’Connor
for Steve McQuillen
for Grant Green – running for Senate in District 28
If you look under the Postage Paid stamp, you’ll see CAMP – Fount Holland’s organization.
Why does it matter that CAMP would be involved in any race? After all, they are an organization paid to do a job – promote candidates. They’re simply doing their jobs.
In 2016, Fount Holland, Joy Hofmeister and others had charges filed against them for violating state campaign laws – conspiring to use dark money in attack ads against then-state superintendent Janet Barresi.
Dark money should concern every voter. Money being poured into races to influence voters – many of whom do not do their own due diligence by researching the candidates – puts those of us who do our civic duty and due diligence at a disadvantage by influencing voters we can’t reach.
This is ESPECIALLY TRUE IN THE STATE AUITOR’S RACE.
When Steve McQuillin last filed for bankruptcy, his attorney told the judge he was retired, had severe health problems and did not intend to return to working.
…He said his two bankruptcies – in 2002 and 2020 – should not be held against him. He blamed the first one on a marriage that didn’t work and the second on medical expenses after being hospitalized in Texas for a kidney stone.
WHAT? The Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector (OSAI):
…as the chief auditor for the State, is responsible for auditing the financial accounts of all government agencies within Oklahoma. The State Auditor and Inspector also performs performance audits and special investigative audits upon request by certain state officials and upon petition by citizens.
And we’re supposed to believe that a person who has two bankruptcies in his credit history and isn’t even a licensed accountant is someone we should trust to oversee the OSAI office?
Cindy Byrd won the National Association of State Auditors Comptrollers and Treasurers (NSAA) Award for Excellence for her forensic report on EPIC Charter Schools.
Clearly, Auditor Byrd is not only doing the job she’s paid to do – protect Oklahoma’s tax dollars – but excelling in that job.
Don’t be fooled by disingenuous (the SAI cannot stop flow of immigrants across the border or stop CRT in schools as many of the mailers – no matter how much “war” McQuillin has declared “on the woke left”) and inaccurate mailers paid for by people who don’t want you to know their identities.
Auditor Byrd is completing an HISTORIC audit of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. An audit which ROPE has asked to be accomplished for over a decade. Byrd needs to be able to finish that job and ROPE is very much looking forward to the results of her audit.
Based upon the successes of her previous four years, Auditor Byrd should definitely be supported for another four and these dark money groups pushing someone clearly not an appropriate fit for the SAI job, should be outed for trying to do just that.
