Hear from Claire's Family
Hear from Claire's Family
As State Auditor, Claire McCaskill revolutionized her office, turning it into a determined watchdog over taxpayers' money and becoming "one of the most active and effective auditor's in Missouri History," according to the Columbia Daily Tribune. By her second year as auditor, the press had already noticed. The Kansas City Star praised McCaskill for having "energized the auditor's role, turning the office into one voters can expect will serve as a true watchdog, awake and alert to government abuses, and not just in spending."
Now in her second-term with nearly eight years in office, McCaskill has a long list of groundbreaking audits. And the media still laud her continued efforts: "McCaskill has been a fireball of a state auditor," The Kansas City Star wrote in 2004, while the St. Joseph News-Press said her unrelenting audit probes on all agencies -- even the sacred cows -- proved she is "fiercely independent."
McCaskill received the Missouri Press Association's Sunshine Award for auditing all levels of government on how well they followed Missouri's open records law when asked for access to public information. She also received the State Employment Advocate Award for her commitment to hiring and retaining minorities in an office that previously lacked diversity.
Her audits have exposed faults in employee background checks for workers helping vulnerable people, including nursing home caregivers and school bus drivers. She's found millions in uncollected child support and dangerous holes in the state-run child abuse hotline. And she's repeatedly advocated ways to save millions in the Medicaid program. Such savings keep people covered by Medicaid, but lower their medicine costs and make Medicaid run more efficiently.
McCaskill was the first State Auditor to aggressively crack down on local governments that were setting tax rates above limits set by law. Her efforts led to legal action by the state on behalf of Missouri taxpayers.