The Aberdeen American News looks at missing state documents and balky Republican legislators and wonders if the reviews and audit the Governor has ordered will produce the answers we South Dakotans deserve.
I offer one shred of hope that a portion of that inquiry could give us some results. Accounting firm Eide Bailly is conducting an internal controls examination of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. That review will restrict their inquiry to documents in Pierre, not the internal books of Northern Beef Packers, the SDRC EB-5 office, or other players outside the immediate circle of state government.
But as I review the bankruptcy documents for Northern Beef Packers, I find that NBP lists Eide Bailly as a creditor with an unsecured nonpriority claim. Eide Bailly's Aberdeen office did some books for NBP before the July bankruptcy... $47,780.14 worth of books for which NBP didn't pay.
Now this debt could cut either way. If NBP was up to no good with GOED money, Eide Bailly wouldn't want to find itself caught up in a "who knew what and when" exposé. But if GOED and NBP improperly diverted money that could have paid Eide Bailly for a big chunk of honest work, Eide Bailly might feel a teensy bit of motivation for some just payback.
Of course, Eide Bailly's ability to produce any information in its review depends on folks in the Governor's office not misplacing any more documents....
There are most likely no records to misplace. When Bob Mercer examined the minutes of the State Board of Economic Development and the Economic Development Finance Authority he found no substantive information contained in them. The minutes were merely records of motions made and votes with no explanation of the significance of the motions or what specific matters they would affect. This way, there is no record for which anyone can be held accountable.
hope you are warm, prof. newquist: good on you and yours.
That is why Eide Bailey is the last accounting firm which should be looking at the GOED issues. Because of what is already public knowledge, I believe that they should have refused to participate in the review due to the apparent conflict of interest. Of course, this is their Aberdeen Office in South Dakota so-no motivation to be concerned with conflicts!
Dead men tell no tales. Notes not taken provide no official record. Governors who duck and hide from debates provide no explanations.
That Bob Mercer is actually looking for transparency must warm State Treasure Dick Butlers heart when he couldn't buy a reporter to cover the reported millions in fraud, neglect and abuse of the office.
The Republicans in South Dakota have ruled that there is no such thing as conflict of interest, Sid............haha
Eide Bailey is the accounting firm that could not find out why the Sioux Empire Fair was losing money till it tried a different accounting method. They decided to check the cash. Instantly they knew where the money went. Now if they can professionally miss a big problem, Daugaard might have thought they were the ones to do his accounting also.
Any good accounting will check the other end of a transaction. If Eide Bailey can not check both the state and NBP, they are by definition, not doing a thorough job. I took auditing from Bob Thimjon at Augustana, he can tell you better than I can.
Wow, now the conspiracy includes a major accounting firm. This is crazy. The $47k isn't enough to compromise this super-regional firm and neither is whatever the state is paying them.
You guys must be willing to sell yourselves cheap to think others are willing to do so.
Troy, note that I'm granting Eide Bailly the benefit of the doubt and suggesting that being out $47K could motivate any reasonable person to do rigorous, honest auditing against any pressure to cover things up as a favor for the party that stiffed the investigator.