‘Unprecedented’ crisis unnerves GOP official in Trump country as no federal help is coming

Missouri is headed toward a potentially painful budget reckoning as state spending continues to outpace revenue growth.

The two candidates for state auditor agree that should be a major concern for the office. They disagree over what the auditor can — and should — do about it.

Republican incumbent Scott Fitzpatrick argues the auditor’s responsibility is to independently assess the state’s finances, warn policymakers about looming problems and root out waste, fraud and abuse.

Democratic challenger Quentin Wilson, who has held leadership positions in several state agencies over two decades, wants the office to take a more active role in finding ways for state government to save money and improve its performance.

The divide has become a central issue in their race for an office that has no power to write the state budget but broad authority to examine how taxpayer money is spent.

Fitzpatrick issued a report in January warning legislators about the difficult budget decisions ahead. Before becoming state treasurer in 2019, Fitzpatrick served two years as chairman of the Missouri House Budget Committee.

“I do not see any prospects of a federal bailout coming to soften the blow of what’s about to happen this time,” he told The Independent. “I think what we’re getting ready to encounter is unprecedented. It’s certainly going to be much worse than anything I dealt with when I was the House budget chairman.”

Fitzpatrick said his job is to start the conversation and “bring a level of seriousness to this to the issue that I think has not existed.”

Wilson believes the auditor’s job should go beyond that.

“You may have heard the current auditor say that his job is basically to tell people when they’re going to run out of money, so they can start planning,” Wilson said. “That’s not an auditor. That’s a doomsday clock.”

Wilson said his experience leading state agencies convinced him the auditor should take a more proactive approach, evaluating not only whether public money was properly spent but whether government programs are working as efficiently as possible.

Fitzpatrick notes that the auditor cannot appropriate money, veto spending or force agencies to adopt its recommendations.

“That’s between the legislature and the governor,” he said, “and I’m neither one of those.”

Expanding the watchdog role

Fitzpatrick points to his office’s investigations of waste, fraud and abuse, particularly in local governments, as evidence that he has strengthened the auditor’s traditional watchdog role.

In 2024, Fitzpatrick pushed for legislation to give his office greater discretion to audit municipalities when wrongdoing is uncovered through a whistleblower complaint.

Previously under state law, the auditor’s office had the ability to investigate whistleblower complaints. Previously, the auditor generally needed a petition from residents or an invitation from a local governing body before launching an audit. The new law allows the office under certain circumstances to move directly from an investigation to an audit and use subpoena power during the investigative stage. It passed unanimously in both chambers.

“Our first audit that we conducted under that expanded authority was the city of Arnold,” Fitzpatrick said, “which was kind of a banger of an audit in my view.”

It exposed, he said, the city’s practice of creating transportation development districts as a way “to basically tax the citizens of the city without a vote of the people.”

“The city of Arnold had basically turned this into like a forever tax or a forever district,” he said, “where they just kind of wanted to have an open-ended list of projects that they could use this money on.”

That was the first time the office used its subpoena power, he said, “and I think that was a good use of that authority.”

Fitzpatrick also points to his office’s work on Jackson County’s 2023 property assessments. The auditor found problems with the county’s assessment and appeals process, and separate litigation brought by the state ultimately resulted in a settlement worth up to $250 million for affected property owners.

When he first became auditor, he thought most of his time would be spent on auditing state agencies. However, because Missouri has the second largest number of political subdivisions of any state in the country, with over 4,000 of them, his office has spent much of its time investigating local governments. That’s where they’ve found most of the fraud cases.

“There’s always going to be more things that need our attention than we have capacity to manage at any given time,” he said, “and so you really are in a situation where you have to kind of figure out what’s the most pressing thing and what’s the thing that could be most impactful for for the taxpayers.”

A broader role for the auditor

The fact that Missouri has so many political subdivisions is why Wilson believes prevention should be the office’s central focus.

“Traditional audits look backward at whether the books balance,” he said. “That’s important, but it’s not enough.”

He wants to restructure the state auditor’s office more like the federal Government Accountability Office, to look ahead at ways to save money and improve outcomes, as well as offer more training for local officials. By doing this, he believes he can save up to $1 billion a year “while actually improving outcomes.”

“Training and developing your human resources is going to accomplish as much as any of our audits,” Wilson said. “When I’m the auditor, it’s going to be a real bang for the buck and satisfaction for people.”

Wilson said the approach reflects practices he used during two decades in state government.

When Wilson first became the director of revenue in 1998, the first thing he did was walk through every step a tax return went through before it got back to the taxpayer. He realized the reason it was taking about 37 days for residents to see their returns was because there were too many unnecessary steps.

“It isn’t rocket science,” he said. “We reengineered it and went from 37 days to four days to get a refund.”

An unexpected cost savings came when the call centers’ workload decreased because people were calling less to check on a refund status.

After his time as revenue director, he went on to become cabinet director under Gov. Bob Holden in 2001. He was tasked with using that streamlining model on various projects, including transportation and worker safety, environmental permitting, correctional reform and mental health.

He touts leading a team of four people to generate about millions in state cost savings. Among them was a $6 million savings of simply changing the motor vehicle registration requirements from every year to every two years.

Streamlining the process of compliance alone can save the state a lot of money, he said.

As the revenue director, his team made the instructions on complying with tax laws easier to understand and less open to interpretation.

“We had much lower volume of appeals,” he said, “so it was voluntary compliance and I think the same thing applies to auditing.”

Wilson has criticized some of Fitzpatrick’s audits for taking too long, arguing that reports can arrive after the underlying problems have changed or the officials responsible have left office.

Wilson has also questioned Fitzpatrick’s independence from fellow Republicans, pointing to allegations in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former employee of the Secretary of State’s Office. The lawsuit alleges Fitzpatrick’s chief of staff participated in a conversation about how concerns over voter registration data could be submitted through the auditor’s whistleblower process.

“With one party controlling state government, Missouri needs an auditor with the independence and management experience to ask tough questions, follow the money and demand results,” Quentin said in a statement.

Fitzpatrick disputed the lawsuit’s characterization, saying his chief of staff only explained the office’s normal procedures for submitting a whistleblower complaint and protecting anonymous complainants. No complaint was ultimately submitted, he said. Fitzpatrick said his audits of other statewide officials demonstrate that he holds officeholders accountable regardless of party.

Wilson argues Missouri’s fiscal outlook makes a more proactive approach increasingly important.

“It is the auditor’s job to help people streamline and improve,” he said. “That’s what GAO does. That’s not what many state auditors do, but I’m going to, and I think it has to be done.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.