On behalf of the 135 men and women at the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor (OSA), thank you for letting us serve you in 2021. The OSA team achieved some remarkable results for taxpayers. We identified over $100 million of misspent or stolen taxpayer money this year. To understand how big that number is, remember it’s about twice the size of the teacher pay raise that the Legislature authorized last year.
In 2021, we also served the largest demand ever issued in the history of the Auditor’s office.
Aside from our investigations into theft and misspending, our audit teams found millions in waste or programs that were taken advantage of. When we audited the unemployment compensation fund, we found more than $100 million had likely been sent to people who were not eligible to receive unemployment payments. When we audited Medicaid, we found millions were likely going to people who should not be on the program. When we studied public education spending, we saw millions in waste in three public school districts. If every school district in Mississippi found savings that big, it would mean nearly $200 million could be repurposed into teachers’ salaries or classroom supplies.
Identifying waste or theft is not the end of our job, though. We work with prosecutors and courts to hold criminal perpetrators accountable and, if possible, retrieve your money. In the three years that I’ve been State Auditor, the criminal defendants who we’ve investigated have been sent to hundreds of years of prison time. Perhaps the most notable this year was the former CFO of the City of Columbus, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison — the maximum sentence — for stealing hundreds of thousands from the city.
From a small-office employee stuffing cash in their clothes, all the way to multimillion-dollar schemes, from tiny water offices to big-time stimulus fraud, we take a zero tolerance approach to allowing theft of your money.
And this year, one of our investigations led to the largest civil settlement — $55 million — following an OSA investigation in the history of the office.
In short, we’ve had a productive year. I would always prefer that there be no misspending or theft of taxpayer money in Mississippi, but as I always remind our team, man is fallen. Crimes will be committed. We must be there to hold the line and catch those who would steal from the Mississippi taxpayer.
One reason I wanted to tell you about our work this year is to brag on the men and women of OSA. They deserve every inch of the credit for what I’ve described. I’m the person who’s lucky enough to hire the directors of our agency, get them the resources they need, demand results, and then tell you about what they accomplish.
As 2022 arrives, I also want you to know we’re committed to working even harder for you — our bosses — this year. We’re going to make greater use of technology, like data analytics, to find savings for you in the new year. New software technology can identify fraud and waste in ways that would have been impossible a few years ago. I’m challenging my team to do more with less this year, as well. And we’re going to implement changes in my office to measure which employees are contributing the most to the agency and to reward those employees.
It’s an exciting time to be at OSA. There is more energy, and the intellectual horsepower and skill of the staff is as high as it’s ever been. We’re ready to put our skills to work for you, once again, in 2022.
Shad White is the 42nd State Auditor of Mississippi.
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