Day: August 4, 2013

That’s a softball question in the post title because all of the bucks are stopping over at Joe Cloyd’s house for a celebration funded in part by the no bid, $50,000 contract Cloyd scored to supposedly communicate the results of Jamie Miller’s outside CPA firm review of the “culture of corruption” that is the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.

I don’t know about you good folks reading this, but Slabbed New Media did not discern any communication from Team Cloyd on the topic of the review done by Horne CPA group, a connection Michael Newsom brings up today in his column in the Sun Herald. In fact, a seasoned, albeit slightly jaded pundit would observe stuffing money into a political strawman’s pocket via a no bid $50,000 DMR contract is eerily reminiscent of what Slabbed New Media covered back during the depth of the oil spill with our own Magnum hosting a multitude of political fundraisers in close proximity to receiving a multimillion dollar contract with BP to help with governmental relations. True dat, Cloyd is jonesing by comparison with a paltry $50K but Mississippi ain’t BP.

But this is not what has us common folk upset at Auditor Pickering, no siree.  I was glad to see the Sun Herald Editorial Board was bright enough to pick up the problem today despite Auditor Pickering’s sophistry on the subject and it is at this point that I’ll direct everyone back to a post I did in December 2012, Mississippians are being robbed blind by Phil Bryant’s political cronies. Exactly where are all the bucks stopping:

If this had been a school secretary embezzling a few thousand dollars from the Student Activity Fund or a secretary at (insert name of state agency) doing same that person would be, at the minimum put on a leave of absence while the investigation sorted all the dirty deeds out.  If you are a political appointee of Bryant on the other hand you get to keep your job and search for a graceful exit.

This turned out to be somewhat prophetic because I have also observed the State Auditor’s Office was expert at crushing school secretaries that steal a few thousand dollars and there it is for all to see in Auditor Pickering’s 2013 exception report, which includes as a State Auditor’s Office recovery the restitution from Roger Ladner of Hancock County, a case the FBI and US Attorney’s Office investigated and prosecuted. Like the typical political that he is, Pickering will take credit for everything he thinks will make him look good, even the stuff he had nothing to do with. Let’s take a peeksie at the report: Continue reading “State Auditor Pickering’s fuzzy math under the microscope: Exactly where are all the bucks stopping?”