This week’s interview is with Sandra Thomas. Ms. Thomas is a Certified Public Accountant and has served as Platte County’s Auditor since her first election to that post in 1994. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from William Jewell College and received her Master of Science in Accounting from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

Also, you can read interviews with some other candidates for Auditor - State Representative Jack Jackson (Republican), Republican State Senator John Loudon (Republican) and Certified Financial Planner Charles Baum (Libertarian) - by visiting the "Past Articles" page on this website.

As of this writing, both State Representative Mark Wright (Republican) and Buchanan County Auditor Susan Montee (Democrat) have refused to participate in an interview for this website.

There are three reasons why I have decided to seek the office of Missouri State Auditor. First, I have always felt the State Auditor, who is the chief accounting officer and chief auditing officer of the State, should be a CPA. Second I am sick and tired of politicians using this office as a political stepping stone. The taxpayers of Missouri deserve a have a professional CPA watching their money not another politician. Third, my 12 years of national and state-level award winning service as a County Auditor make me the best qualified candidate to be State Auditor of the current field of candidates.

The State Auditor is the state’s chief accounting officer and should have a quiet, but firm role in State government. A government entity should know that it will be subject to a professionally designed and motivated audit when the State Auditor’s office shows up. However, the government entity should not fear that its audit is politically-motivated or being conducted for the political gain of the State Auditor. The best way to avoid politically-motivated audits is to not have a politician with no accounting or auditing credentials in charge of the State Auditor’s office. Instead, the State Auditor’s office should be headed by a professionally trained and experienced auditor/CPA who puts her experience and professional credentials behind every audit done by the office.

The Missouri taxpayers should expect the State Auditor’s office to perform with the highest level of professionalism in accordance with the applicable accounting and auditing standards. The taxpayers should expect the State Auditor herself to be familiar with governmental accounting and auditing standards so this level of professionalism can be achieved.

The State Auditor needs to work better with other government entities. There are lots of opportunities for efficiencies that can be created by the State Auditor’s office working with other government entities to establish internal controls to assure that those government entities are operated as efficiently as possible for the benefit of the people they serve. The State Auditor’s office should cooperate with these government entities to help them achieve maximum efficiencies. The government entities should not feel that the State Auditor is merely looking for problems, whether real or not, that will make a good press release that the State Auditor can use for his personal political advancement.

The first priority needs to be to review the audits of the last eight years to develop a four-year audit plan to be sure the office complies with its constitutional mandates. Some specific areas that I want to review are (1) analyzing how the internal accounting staff of MoDoT interacts with the State Auditor’s office to assure maximum efficiencies in the use of our transportation dollars; (2) examining the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to evaluate whether the maximum amount of our tax dollars are reaching the classroom and are not being spent on excessive education bureaucracy; and (3) reviewing the State’s competitive bid procedures.

The State Auditor needs to cooperate with the other statewide officeholders to provide services to the taxpayers in the most efficient manner possible. When an improvement on how things should be done is discovered, that proposed improvement should be discussed with the particular officer and a response to that proposed improvement should be developed before a press conference is held about the need for the improvement. The first time the officer learns of the need for the improvement should not be from a press conference on the Capitol steps. However, if the officer is unresponsive to the need for the proposed improvement, the State Auditor should use whatever means are at her disposal to draw public attention to the need for the improvement. In my role as County Auditor, I have been able to operate with the other county officeholders in this manner and only use the public route to addressing a needed improvement when the county officeholder has been unresponsive to the need for the improvement.

As a CPA with nearly 12 years of national award winning experience in governmental accounting and auditing, I am familiar with Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99 which is one of the professional auditing standards that governs the design of audits. I would apply these professional auditing standards in designing and selecting audits of government entities.

I am the only CPA in the Republican primary. I am the only Republican candidate with any governmental accounting or auditing experience. I have two accounting degrees. I have nearly 12 years of experience serving as the County Auditor of one of the fastest growing counties in the State. I have won a national award for the performance of my office for nine consecutive years from the Government Financial Officers Association. I have been named the "Outstanding CPA in Government" by the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants. And, I have been endorsed by all of the Republican County Auditors in the State, Congressman Sam Graves, former Deputy State Auditor Chuck Pierce, and most significantly by former State Auditor Margaret Kelly, who two of my opponents describe as the State Auditor they respect the most.