Deborah Silver, the Twin Falls accountant who’s challenging four-term state Treasurer Ron Crane, is calling on Crane to release a full review of questioned investment transactions to state auditors. “What else does he have to hide?” Silver asked. “Idaho taxpayers deserve the truth from their state treasurer.”

Crane maintains he’s released all the information he can, but Idaho’s state auditor’s office, in an audit report released at the end of June, said it still hadn’t received documentation showing that Crane’s office has reviewed all potentially problematic transactions, after news of one surfaced in which a state investment pool lost millions when Crane’s office reallocated assets between it and a local government investment pool.

“While documentation of two specific reallocations was provided during the audit, no additional evidence supporting a full review of all potentially inappropriate reallocations was provided,” the late-June audit report said. Laura Steffler, Crane’s chief deputy, wrote in the office’s official response submitted for that report that the office had reviewed all securities lending transactions for reallocation of assets between investment portfolios directed by the office since July 1, 2008, and had already provided all the documentation.

“Short of just saying we did it, I don’t know how else we can prove … that we did it,” said Ken Burgess, spokesman for Crane’s re-election campaign. He said Crane’s office offered the auditors access to the full documentation for every one of the tens of thousands of transactions completed under its securities lending agreement since 2008, and the auditors declined that offer. “They said we don’t want all this stuff – we just want you to somehow prove that you did a full review,” Burgess said. “How do you prove that, short of taking our word that we did it?”

Silver responded, “That makes absolutely no sense. There are statements, with the allocations going back and forth reconciling the balance. … In my view, either he really does not understand what the auditors want, or he’s deliberately dodging.” You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.