Democratic State Auditor Candidate Makes Campaign Stop In Warsaw
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Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
Democratic State Auditor Candidate Mike Claytor made a campaign stop in Warsaw Wednesday. Claytor, 62, Carmel, is a retired certified public accountant with Crowe Horwath, serving for 23 years. Prior to that, for 15 years he served with the state board of accounts as a field examiner doing audits. Claytor faces Republican Suzanne Crouch, Evansville, in the November election. Claytor said the auditor is the state’s chief financial officer, and one of the things the auditor has gotten away from is that the state auditor doesn’t do auditing. He said he believes that is absolutely wrong. “The auditor’s job should be an internal audit, but it has become a check writing function,” Claytor said. He said it is first time seeking office. He said he had heard the state lost half a billion dollars and that made him decide to seek the auditor’s office. “It was because of a poor control system and no internal audit. The money was in the account, but the state didn’t know they had it,” Claytor said. He said the money had accumulated from 2007 to 2010, and during that time $300 million was cut out of education funding because the state didn’t think it had enough money. “The state would not to have cut education funding at the time if they had a better set of records,” Claytor said. He said when he worked for the state board of accounts he worked in the state auditor’s office and is familiar with the office. Claytor said there has never been a CPA run for state auditor in Indiana before. He said he has experience in internal auditing in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida. “I have seen how other state agencies handle their finances, so I am not just locked into how Indiana will be doing things, and I can bring that national expertise in,” Claytor said. He said internal auditing needs to be done in the office, and the state’s transparency portal computer system needs to be updated. Citizens can use the system to access information about the state’s finances and contracts. “It needs to be accurate and current, and right now it is several months behind and it needs to be complete,” Claytor said.
