Missouri GOP files Sunshine Law request on questionable raises given by Kander

(From the Missouri Republican Party)

A scathing audit released today revealed that Secretary of State Jason Kander repeatedly doled out questionable raises to his staff. Kander gave 239 raises to 161 employees over a three year period—from mid-2012 to mid-2015—while the governor was slashing hundreds of millions of dollars from state budgets. In many of these cases, Kander failed to properly document why the pay hikes were merited.

On the heels of the audit report, the Missouri Republican Party filed a Sunshine Law request with the Secretary of State’s office seeking information about the raises, specifically which employees received them and how large they were.

“At a time when hundreds of millions of dollars were being slashed from the Missouri budget, Jason Kander was spending taxpayer money doling out hundreds of raises to his staff. Even the Democrat State Auditor, who is a donor to Kander’s campaign, admits that many of these raises were questionable,” said Jonathon Prouty, Executive Director of the Missouri Republican Party. “This shows yet again that Jason Kander simply cannot be trusted.”

According to the audit report, Kander “provided 239 additional salary increases to 161 employees.” These raises were on top of the regular cost of living adjustments received by most state workers. In nearly 75% of the examples reviewed by auditors, documentation supporting the raises was missing, inadequate, or contradicted by the verbal explanations provided by office personnel.