State Auditor’s Office investigates misuse of public funds

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The State Auditor’s Office has a number of duties, but it’s best known for one – investigating the misuse of public funds.

And State Auditor Shad White has had his hands full in that department in the past year.

White was in Starkville today speaking to business and community leaders.

Even though White’s office has over a hundred active cases at any one time, since news broke of a case of widespread misuse of Federal Welfare Funds that involved a non-profit, the Department of Human Services, and reportedly a former Governor and an NFL Hall of Famer, those other cases have been overshadowed.

“Well, I’ll tell you just in general, on the welfare case, we’re continuing to investigate it, and we’ve provided everything that we have in the case over to Federal investigators, the FBI. So, right now, there’s effectively a joint team investigating all of that, and I can tell you because there’s so many resources dedicated to it, it’s going to be investigated from top to bottom, from the most important people, all the way down to the janitor of DHS, and we’ll see where it ends at the end of that,” said White.

White emphasizes that his office does not prosecute cases. It thoroughly investigates charges and hands that information over to prosecutors, who make the decision whether or not to prosecute.