In the last six years, the state auditor’s office has demanded more in taxpayer funds than ever before, State Auditor Shad White told the Rotary Club of Columbus on Tuesday.
The office recovered more than $6.2 million in taxpayer money during Fiscal Year 2024, according to its annual exceptions report.
“A lot of what we do in the auditor’s office is searching for waste and government inefficiency, especially in state government, and we have found tons and tons and tons of it over the course of the past six years in office,” White said.
White said his job is to make sure taxpayers know how their money is being spent and to highlight inefficiencies in government spending. Money that state agencies use inefficiently could be redirected to areas in the state that need it, he said.
“If we could just take all of these instances of inefficiencies, waste, misspending and dump it into the stuff that matters, how much good could we do for teachers?” White asked. “Or how much good can we do for your universities?”
The office also handles fraud and embezzlement cases. One of the biggest the office has handled during his tenure was in Columbus, White said.
The state auditor’s office began investigating Milton Rawle, former chief financial officer for the city, in 2019 after receiving a tip from a whistleblower.
The investigation uncovered unauthorized transactions that had been falsely labeled under “payroll” or “reimbursement.” Rawle was arrested in August 2020 and charged with embezzling nearly $290,000 from the city between 2016 and 2018. He pleaded guilty and was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Rawle died in prison in June 2023.
Rawle was ordered in court to pay $108,388.20 in restitution, while the remaining $180,504.83 was paid in surety bonds.
The state auditor’s office issued Rawle a formal demand of $354,896.27, including investigative expenses, the embezzled amount and interest. While about $242,000 has been recovered, there is still $111,945 remaining, according to the office’s annual exceptions report.
In cases like these, the state auditor’s office takes its findings to the local prosecutor, who then charges the person with the crime. White said this case was a perfect example of that system working.
“When the system works, it works well,” he said. “We saw in that case a prosecutor step up and prosecute that individual, and they were sentenced to a very serious prison sentence.”
White cited tips from whistleblowers, like with the Rawle case, as a key mechanism for the state auditor’s office to start these investigations.
“My hope is that when we keep doing cases like that, it sends a message to other people who are out there thinking about stealing taxpayer funds,” he said. “If you do this, you’re probably going to get caught and there are going to be some serious consequences at the end of it.”
White said the point of his job is to tell taxpayers the truth about where their money goes, including when it is misspent or inefficiently used by state agencies. While he can point out those problems, fixing them doesn’t fall under his purview, he said.
“I can shine a light, using my team and our analytics, on any of the spending that happens in the state of Mississippi, and that’s good because sometimes you get legislators who will pay attention and who will help address an issue,” he said. “But sometimes, I’ll be honest with you, you point out a set of facts, and it can fall on deaf ears.”
White said that he’s worked successfully with the legislature to increase penalties for people who steal taxpayer funds. But there’s still more White hopes the legislature will pursue.
For one, a report by the state auditor’s office found Mississippi universities spent $23.4 million on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts between July 2019 and June 2023. A bill prohibiting taxpayer funding for DEI efforts died in committee during the past legislative session.
White said he’s planning to back that bill if it is proposed again. He said the money spent on those offices should be reoriented within the university to bolster degree programs for careers that will benefit the Mississippi economy.
“We’re dying for nurses, for example. We need to be producing more nurses and creating larger nursing programs, pushing kids to those programs,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing that’s going to supercharge our economy. It’s going to mean that more students are more likely to stay here because they can get a good job here in Mississippi afterwards.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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