When an independent audit criticized Republican state auditor candidate and Platte County Auditor Sandra Thomas for her handling of a situation in which $195,000 in funds were missing in Platte County, Ms. Thomas refused to own up to it and blamed everyone except Saddam Hussein and herself.
Thomas blamed Platte County's treasurer, a former county commissioner and even the outside auditor who eventually straightened out the problems – even though Thomas is the county's chief accounting officer.
Platte County commissioners eventually authorized $2,500 to pay a private accounting firm to unravel the mystery. The outside audit found that no cash was missing, but that four accounting errors led to erroneous financial statements, including three mistakes by Thomas' office.
Thomas, who has boasted of her status as a certified public accountant, said the discrepancies were typical for any county that has four agencies posting deposits and drawing money.
"If you look at anyone's books, you will find things like this," she said.
Ms. Thomas went on to attack Democratic nominee Susan Montee for a situation involving the county administrator in Buchanan County where Ms. Montee is the county auditor...even though even Republicans agreed that Ms. Montee was not to blame for the situation.
Apparently, when Ms. Thomas was running against non-auditors she stressed her county auditor experience and claimed she was not a politician. Now that she is facing someone with equal or greater qualifications as a CPA, she turns to the cutthroat politics that supposely are beneath her.
And now that she has started down that road, expect things to get worse before November.
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More about the Thomas-Montee accusations can be found at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch political blog.
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