Two-term state auditor Stacey Pickering used Tuesday’s appearance at the Columbus Rotary Club to tout his office’s work in exposing misuse of taxpayer funds by public officials even as questions about his own use of campaign funds have been brought into question.
Allegations of inappropriate use of campaign funds was not part of his 30-minute speech, nor did the subject emerge in a short question-and-answer period. But Pickering did briefly address the controversy prior to the luncheon.
“We have addressed this last week when we released our statement where we said that we have complied with all campaign finance laws in the state of Mississippi,” Pickering said. “We have been transparent, right up front in saying exactly what the expenditures were and what they were used for. We want to move forward.”
The controversy began Thursday when the Clarion Ledger newspaper reported the FBI has been investigating Pickering’s campaign finance records since March, questioning the purchase of an RV, a car and a garage door, as well as $135,000 Pickering reimbursed himself in campaign expenses in non-election years of 2012-14.
Pickering issued a statement Friday defending the expenditures, noting he paid ad valorem taxes and insurance on the vehicles and explaining the campaign expenses by saying most of those expenses were incurred helping other Republican candidates, including 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
While it is unclear if the law prohibits candidates from converting campaign funds to personal use, any such actions would require the candidate to report it on their income tax, something Pickering did not address in his previous statement.
“We have reported all the appropriate income tax,” Pickering said Tuesday. “We were very specific about the personal use of any vehicles.”
Asked if he would be willing to release his income tax returns to verify that claim, Pickering said, “At the appropriate time, we will have those discussions, but right now, we’re not going to do that. We have a campaign we’re moving forward on. We have released the appropriate documents and complied with all the laws. I’m confident that no laws were broken.”
‘Dirty politics’
Pickering, R-Laurel, dismissed the controversy as an example of “how dirty politics has become in this day and age.”
Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, his opponent in the Aug. 4 primary for state auditor, has seized on Pickering’s use of campaign funds.
“Mr. Pickering is doing exactly what he is arresting other people for doing, and he has been caught red-handed,” Butler told the Associated Press Friday. “The record is there. He has used his campaign funds to live off of for years. He has used it as a slush fund. He can say whatever he wants to say. The people of this state deserve an explanation of his actions.”
Pickering said Butler’s charges were an act of a desperation.
“What you have here is a candidate who has raised very little money and is using this to magnify her exposure,” Pickering said. “It’s just dirty politics.”
In his speech to the Rotarians, Pickering highlighted the success of his office in bringing public officials who has misused public money to justice.
“Each year, we are required to file what is called a Auditor’s Exceptions Report, which lists all the public officials we have investigated and the results,” Pickering said. “That release will come out on Aug. 1 and it will show that we have recovered more than $23 million in taxpayer funds in the eight years I’ve been auditor. That’s more than the three previous auditors have done put together. We’ve had 24 public or elected officials removed from office and 140 guilty pleas over that period of time.”
Pickering also touted his office’s success in preventing fraud in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the Economic Stimulus Program of 2009.
“The federal government projected that the fraud rate would be 10 percent for both of those programs,” he said. “But thanks to the work of our department the actual fraud rate was less than a half-percent for both of those. That’s an enormous amount of money we are talking about.
“There are two top awards for auditor’s offices and we’ve won them both in the last four years. Mississippi is now recognized as to best states in fighting public corruption.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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