I love this guy!! Mike Claytor is running state wide. Please do everything you can to share who he is with friends, family, and neighbors! Candidate for auditor blasts CECI: Democratic candidate for state auditor Mike Claytor brought his “cost of corruption” tour to the voters of Allen County on Wednesday, protesting what he called a lack of transparency affecting public education. During his visit to the Allen County Democratic Party headquarters on Decatur Road, he also focused on what he described as a combative atmosphere that exists for elected Democrat Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz. Claytor appeared with two local candidates, Democrat Jack Morris, who is running for state Senate, and Anne Duff, one of three candidates running for the at-large position for the Fort Wayne Community Schools board. Hoosiers go to the polls Nov. 4. Duff said she was representing the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, a group that has three concerns: Is the role of the state superintendent being redefined or diminished; is the current administration trying to remove the superintendent as chairman of the State Board of Education; and is the current administration trying to change the position from an elected position to an appointed one. While attacking the Center for Education and Career Innovation – a state agency created in 2013 under executive order by Gov. Mike Pence – Claytor said the agency is the only one that is not required to revert money left over at the end of the year to the state surplus. The reversions are used to keep that surplus at $2 billion. The agency was created by pulling employees and funding from several existing agencies, including the State Board of Education, the Education Roundtable, the Indiana Career Council and the Indiana Works Council. “They’re the only agency that doesn’t have to revert,” Claytor said. “It’s a shell game. The people (who are working for the CECI) are not being paid from the agency they are working,” adding that the costs of those 21 people amount to $14 million. “They took $14 million and put it together. You don’t know how much they would have spent anyway and how much is duplication,” said Claytor, who called the CECI a “shadow agency for Glenda Ritz.” CECI itself doesn’t have a line item in the current state budget because it didn’t exist when the budget was passed. But the agencies under CECI did revert money. The State Board of Education returned $1.7 million, and the Indiana Works Council sent back nearly $150,000. The agencies CECI oversees reverted $2.18 million – or 21 percent of their appropriation. In Pence’s original executive order, a CECI Fund was established as non-reverting, but spokeswoman Kara Brooks said no money was placed in that account. Steve Shine, Allen County Republican chairman, said Claytor had only recently re-registered to vote in Indiana. “With that kind of lack of commitment to Indiana government and Indiana policy, I feel it is rather brash to criticize and opine on a program plan the governor has spent a long time and effort in implementing.” Claytor’s campaign manager, Annie Mansfield, said he has lived in Indiana all his life, except for five years he spent in Florida for business reasons. Claytor’s other beef is that on the state’s transparency portal, where detailed information is given on costs and expenses for all the other agencies, “nothing pops up for CECI.” Mansfield said Claytor and his staff have made public information requests but that those requests have been diverted or stymied. Claytor worked for 15 years for the state’s Board of Accounts and then for 22 years with Crowe Horwath, an accounting firm. He said he is a forensic accountant and would be the first certified public accountant elected as state auditor if he wins. His opponent is incumbent Suzanne Crouch, a former state legislator from Evansville who was appointed to the position after back-to-back resignations of elected state auditor Tim Berry and his replacement, Dwayne Sawyer. Morris’ opponent in the election is Republican Liz Brown.9
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:35:50 +0000
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