An ongoing rift between Republican State Auditor Shad White and a growing number of elected officials in Mississippi has widened over the last month. The second-term auditor said Monday the pushback has only served to spur him closer to taking a swing at the governor’s seat in 2027.
White has boasted a no-holds-barred approach to keeping state government accountable since being appointed to the position by then-Gov. Phil Bryant in 2018. He has since been elected to the statewide office twice, with the beginning of his current term bringing a maelstrom of controversy and resistance from other leaders who take issue with his increasingly aggressive approach.
The backlash from both public detractors and political counterparts has been a consistent backdrop in his second full term. Opposition has included a lingering lawsuit from Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch regarding White’s legal role in the ongoing TANF welfare scandal fallout, an accusation of an improper investigation framed as “political shenanigans,” and a continuing public jousting match with Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.
At the annual budget hearing for the state auditor’s office in front of the Mississippi Senate Appropriations Committee last month, questions from Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, probed both White’s role in seeking monetary retribution from Brett Favre in the TANF scandal and the legality of a $2 million audit of state government waste outsourced to Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The questions sparked a verbal donnybrook between the auditor and Polk – an exchange that White believes was politically motivated.
“This line of questioning feels less about policy, and it feels more about politics to me. That’s exactly what it feels like,” White said at the hearing on Jan. 22. “I’ve never been questioned on an audit like this right up until the moment where the lieutenant governor thinks I might be the thing standing between him and the governor’s office.”
Polk denied White’s assertion, stating his questions were aimed at making sure Mississippians were “getting their money’s worth” from the office. When the senator questioned the legitimacy of the “Request for Approval” process for the audit and whether White had any family members involved with Boston Consulting Group, the auditor plainly said, “You’re a liar.”
In the same hearing, White also threatened to levy a defamation lawsuit against Polk for asserting that the auditor’s wife, Rina White, had worked for BCG. Polk again maintained that he was only asking questions and had made no assertions.
“I hate your answer that you just gave because I did not mention a family member,” Polk said in response. “You brought that up.”
The audit from BCG uncovered more than $335 million in alleged government waste. A report tied to the audit, entitled “Project Momentum,” broke down where the examination said Mississippi’s government is inefficient, and made fiscal recommendations while advocating for policy changes that would save taxpayer’s money.
Whether there were political motives or not behind Polk’s questioning and other critiques of White’s approach, the auditor’s tactics have borne legislative repercussions.
Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch, authored legislation that would limit White’s team’s abilities to conduct certain duties without additional oversight. Parker’s qualm with the auditor’s means of handling investigations was sparked by the arrest of former Horn Lake Alderman Charles Roberts.
Roberts was taken into custody this past September for receiving unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic while still employed by the city of Horn Lake and failing to disclose that income. The former alderman’s attorney argued that Roberts had paid the funds back months before his arrest and was mistreated.
“Wanting to discuss this further, I reached out to the auditor. Our conversation did not go as expected. I shared my concerns, but the auditor was not interested in hearing them,” Parker said on the Senate floor. “Although this may not be [White’s] opinion, until the accused is given their due process, they should not be assumed to be guilty by the auditor or anyone else. This experience left me deeply concerned.”
In response, Parker drafted Senate Bill 2847 to make the auditor’s office more accountable to other government officials. The legislation served to bar the auditor’s office from recovering funds without first obtaining a green light from the legislature as well as the governor.
Parker ultimately tabled the bill, which was dubbed by White as the “Mississippi Corruption Act of 2025,” and let it die on the calendar last Wednesday.
“Some folks in the state senate and others said, ‘You don’t have the right to even look for waste.’ In my opinion, those were politically motivated allegations. We, of course, have the ability to look for waste in the state auditor’s office. That’s the definition of an auditor,” White told SuperTalk Mississippi News.
“Months later, they come back with changes in a bill that would take away the ability of the auditor’s office to look for waste. Both of these things can’t be true at the same time. Either we do have the authority and they’re trying to take it away, or we don’t.”
When asked about the pushback he’s received over the last year, particularly regarding his brash disposition that some say is reminiscent of Republican President Donald Trump, White doubled down. He pointed to coming from a multi-generation line of oil workers who “don’t sugarcoat the truth” and that he takes comparisons to the current commander-in-chief as a compliment.
“Yeah, there’s going to be some politicians in Jackson who don’t like it. But frankly, I think a lot of folks out in the real world – they want to know this stuff. They want to know how their money is being spent, and they want someone to be clear about it,” White said Monday.
“I think what’s driving all of this is politics. I think that the lieutenant governor realizes that he wants to be governor and that I’m somebody potentially standing in the way of that happening. I think it’s a political effort to stop me from doing my job. I just think that’s wrong.”
White has been transparent about his consideration of a gubernatorial run in 2027, possibly pitting him against two of his staunchest detractors – Hosemann and Fitch.
“This past month has dramatically increased the chance that I get into that race,” White concluded. “Because I’m seeing that normal people are just as fed up with this stuff as I am. That’s really encouraging.”
