State Treasurer Allison Ball claimed Monday night that Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration turned down her request more than a year ago to audit millions of dollars in tornado and flood relief funds it had generated from donations.
Ball said the state Public Protection Cabinet, which oversees the funds, said “no thank you” to her request.
Ball’s comments came during an appearance on Kentucky Educational Television network’s “Kentucky Tonight” show with host Renee Shaw for this fall’s candidates for state auditor.
Ball, a Republican who could not run again for treasurer because of term limits, is being challenged by Democrat Kim Reeder. The current auditor, Mike Harmon, also could not run again for that office and he was an unsuccessful candidate in last May’s Republican primary election for governor.
Also on the KET show were candidates for state treasurer – Democrat Michael Bowman and Republican Mark Metcalf, who argued over the state legislature’s decision to try to phase out the state income tax. Metcalf said he supported the move while Bowman voiced opposition.
The auditor candidates took the first half-hour of the hour-long show.
In it, Ball, a former prosecutor made her claim about the Beshear administration’s rebuff of her request for an audit of disaster relief funds.
The Beshear administration said late Monday night it had no immediate comment on Ball’s claim.
As of July, the Team Eastern Kentucky fund had raised more than $13 million since heavy flooding in July 2022, and the Team Western Kentucky fund had brought in more than $52 million since the December 2021 tornadoes.
In July, Auditor Harmon announced that his office is launching a special examination of the two funds.
Harmon said his exam would focus on the Public Protection Cabinet’s acceptance, administration and expenditure of money associated with the relief funds, and would cover the timeframe of Dec. 11, 2021, through June 30, 2023.
Harmon said his decision to audit the funds followed a letter of request for an audit sent to his office by Rep. Adam Bowling and Sen. Brandon Storm, the co-chairs of the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee.
Ball, a Floyd County native and attorney, said Monday night there are reports that more than 200 checks went to the wrong people and about 1,000 checks have not been cashed at all.
“We need to make sure there is a good audit of these funds,” said Ball.
Reeder, a native of Rowan County and a tax lawyer, said she would look at the details of the relief funds as auditor and then decide whether to audit them.
Both candidates said they would be watchdogs of state spending and would not hesitate to conduct audits even if they were embarrassing to leaders of their political parties.
In the discussion with the treasurer candidates, Metcalf, a career prosecutor in Garrard County, and Bowman, a Louisville bank officer and former legislative assistant to Louisville’s Metro Government took opposite sides on the state’s income tax reduction plan.
Last February, Beshear signed House Bill 1 to provide a 0.5 percent individual income tax reduction effective Jan. 1, 2024. The rate had been cut 0.5 percent to 4.5 percent last January with more cuts possible if the state’s financial picture met certain evaluations.
But it was reported earlier this month that the state’s tax rate would not decrease in 2025 but would stay the same because the state failed to meet certain fiscal requirements that would have ushered in another reduction under a Republican plan to phase out the tax.
Metcalf said the state spends too much and needs to save more because of its billions of dollars worth of debt but he thinks the tax reduction is good for the state’s people.
Bowman said decreasing the income tax will not help the state or its people. He said the state needs to be more transparent with what it does with its money.
This story is republished with permission from the Northern Kentucky Tribune. Read the original.
Jack Brammer is a part-time state reporter covering the Northern Kentucky Tribune state legislative caucus and state politics. Prior to joining the NKyTribune, he was the Frankfort Bureau Chief for the Lexington Herald-Leader, a role he retired from in December 2021 after covering nine Kentucky governors and 58 sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly.
