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Saturday, February 1, 2014

State Treas. Ron Crane Loses $27Million In Bad Investments

THE GUARDIAN has learned today after a read of the Idaho Legislative Audit Division's audit report to the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Otter $27MM has evaporated into the electronic cosmos of Wall Street investments.  State Treasurer, Ron Crane invested taxpayer money in all manner of investments that were outside the fiduciary responsibility of his office.  Mr. Crane invested taxpayer money in derivatives, securities rated at less than AAA and in AAA securities that did not have both the rating of AAA by Moody's and Standard and Poor's investment ratings agencies.

In short, it appears Sec. Crane was playing fast and loose with taxpayer money and doing so in the absence of any oversight on investments. 

The audit was conducted by the Idaho Legislative Audit Division and was signed by Ms. April Renfro, CPA who heads up the Audit Division. Below is a link to the audit and it is a very straight forward document most people can easily understand.  It will be interesting to see how the layers of this onion get peeled away going forward with all the political finger pointing that is sure to follow this document.

http://legislature.idaho.gov/audit/2013internalcontrol.pdf#storylink=relast
Posted by Paul Alldredge at 2:06 PM

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousSaturday, February 01, 2014 3:52:00 PM

    I would think every govt entity which has money invested in the State funds should take a look at this and also review their own procedures as to checks and balances. In particular does one person make all of these decisions? Lack of oversight may be more the rule rather than the exception

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMonday, February 03, 2014 1:34:00 PM

    Where is the Independent Special Prosecutor from the Attorney General's office? Are the State Police going to get involved with this? Is an oversight committee in the State Legislature going to question this guy? How about the folks over there on Fort Street? The people need to be asking some questions here, because this is looking to be just another good ole boy coverup.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMonday, February 03, 2014 2:03:00 PM

    Mr. Crane will offer up all manner of excuses on his behavior but in the end I expect he will resign his post and State Treasurer once the legislative session is over. The Repubs. in red state Idaho don't want their dirty laundry hung out in front of the voters prior to an election. Mr. Crane will no doubt resign due to some pressing personal issues, health or some other goody-goody reason that saves the Legislature any public embarrassment. In the meantime it will be interesting to see if the media hounds have the scent of blood in their collective nostrils on this matter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousTuesday, February 04, 2014 1:11:00 PM

      I don't know. The good ole boy spin machine is in spin-control mode about this. I guess it's all about who you know.

      Delete
  4. Paul AlldredgeTuesday, February 04, 2014 1:32:00 PM

    The spin cycle has started on this and here is a link to the latest from the Idaho Statesman:

    http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/02/03/3006740/treasurer-refuses-to-answer-questions.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSunday, February 09, 2014 1:23:00 PM

    This is starting to look like the old buyer beware, laissez faire, if I rip you off I don't care ordeal. To many easy loopholes and lack of oversight concerning these kinds of transactions. Once again the good ole boys have ripped off the people, and got away with it.

    ReplyDelete

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