Republican Auditor David Yost says he fully anticipates that the governor’s office will comply with the March 19 subpoena because he says he hasn’t formally heard otherwise, though Republican Gov. John Kasich has told reporters he doesn’t feel the auditor has the authority to audit JobsOhio’s private dollars.

Look, our concern is for accountability, transparency. The nexus of the money is so close to its public source and there are so many public actions involved, we believe that it ought to be treated as public money.

Gov. Kasich confirms that he and Yost have talked, but he won’t say if JobsOhio will or won’t turn over the books.

The goal is to make sure that people understand the public dollars are going to be audited. We’ve asked them to take a look at all these public dollars and when it comes to additional issues there, we just have to work through it.

Kasich notes that the private firm KPMG has already done an audit of JobsOhio.

But many Republicans says Yost lacks the authority for such an audit.

Ohio’s Republican Auditor, Dave Yost, has issued a subpoena to JobsOhio, asking the private development agency to hand over financial records through the end of last June. That follows a private audit that shows JobsOhio received more than $5 million in state grants that many lawmakers say they didn’t know about.

And they say that money had not been disclosed in previous financial statements.

When asked by reporters about the subpoena, Republican Governor John Kasich minimizes the notion that he has a big disagreement with Yost.

The thing is they want to audit more than the public money and it gets to be problematic. If we give an incentive to a company here and they want to go in and audit their books, it gets to be really unworkable and disruptive.

“But if a company takes public money, that money ought to be audited by the Auditor of the State. It’s no more complicated than that,” Kasich says. “Look, I mean sometimes you read things and it appears one way. It’s just a little disagreement about how we should proceed.

When Kasich was asked if he knew about the $5 million grant amount, the Governor responds this way:

“You need to understand how this all works. It’s a complicated entity and I would suggest that you go talk to the development service agency and get over to JobsOhio and talk to them so you will understand how this all comes together.”

Kasich says Yost does not have the right to audit anything beyond public dollars and if an amendment spelling out a clarification in law about how JobsOhio can be audited is needed, he says lawmakers will get it.

But the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, Bill Batchelder, says he was key in writing the rules to begin with and says it is already clear that Yost is overstepping his authority.

He doesn’t have that authority to go into a private corporation to audit it. I’m waiting for him to try to get in to Chrysler Motors or Fiat or whatever they call it now. You know we bought a lot of cars from them this year. What’s going on over there?

Batchelder says that last part in jest because he says private businesses do not allow public oversight of their books. He says there’s no reason to think there’s anything improper happening at JobsOhio.

“There might be a perception problem created by the auditor, but I think most people understood that board, you’ve looked at the list of board members. These are people above reproach. I mean this is not some group of cowboy,” Batchelder says.

But Ohio’s Democratic Party Chairman, Chris Redfern, says he can’t understand the Governor’s response to these questions.

The fact of the matter is it all seems so defensive, so reactive, if the first response from the Governor’s office is it’s complicated and oh yeah, we are going to get an amendment added to a bill that would essentially strip away the state auditor’s ability to audit the books. In the old days, you’d be a little less transparent if you are a crook on how you would steal the money.

Redfern says there’s no legal way nearly $5 million of state money could have been transferred to JobsOhio without the authority of the Ohio legislature.

And Redfern says that authority has never been given for those dollars.

“And no one is down at the Statehouse right now threatening to storm the door saying what on Earth is going on….there are 4.3 million dollars missing.”

Recently, the state offered 100 million dollars in state bonds to provide more money for JobsOhio.

Democratic State Representative Jay Carney says until these questions are answered, that transaction should be put on hold.

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost says in a statement that fieldwork has been completed. He says there are now consultations under way with the Ohio Department of Education and with school districts that appear to have “scrubbed” attendance data.

The audit began after an internal audit found irregular practices in Columbus City Schools, and questionable practices also surfaced at Toledo Public Schools and the Cincinnati-area Lockland City Schools.

The schools reportedly were trying to improve state performance ratings.

Yost today released the preliminary audit into attendance record-keeping practices at 75 Ohio districts. The investigation follows revelations that several Ohio districts may have withdrawn poorly-performing students, then re-enrolled them.

Doing so keeps their standardized test scores from factoring into district report card ratings, although Yost says today’s report did not deal with why the changes were made.

“In Columbus’ public school district, we looked at ten middle schools. In each of them, we found pervasive evidence of students who had been rolled up to the state, who had a break in enrollment, who was not supported by the documentation,” Yost said.

“Without the documentation, all we have is anyone’s word. This is more than nitpicking about pieces of paper. Without the records, there is no evidence that the actions were properly taken by the government.”

Yost says school districts in Cleveland, Toledo, Marion, and Campbell also showed evidence of scrubbing.

Yost defined scrubbing as the practice of removing students from enrollment without unlawful reason, although he says scrubbing by itself does not guarantee wrong-doing.

The full investigation is expected to extend into next year.

The Ohio Department of Education plans to release partial report card results on its Web site by midday, although a district’s attendance rate, performance index and overall rating will be omitted. That remains held up over the investigation into whether several Ohio districts changed attendance data to boost report card ratings.

But even that incomplete data won’t be public until the end of the month.

Ohio schools are under investigation by the state auditor, who wants to know which ones falsified attendance records. That kind of data manipulation could boost schools’ report cards, which is why the State Board of Education has held off on releasing what could be incorrect data in this year’s scores. Until now, that is.

“I believe from a full transparency piece that if the information is available and people want access to it, why don’t we give them access to the preliminary data,” says acting Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Sawyers.

Sawyers argues that since many media outlets have already requested and will be getting access to the preliminary report card data, the board might as well release it to the general public.

“We can add a disclaimer or a qualifier that says this is all subject to further review and try to do something short and simple to explain what’s going on with the auditor of state’s office, but I think we have a duty and a responsibility to share what’s available.”

The preliminary data will be released in a spreadsheet around September 30th. It will not include attendance rates, performance index scores, or the overall score of a school or district.

This week Auditor Dave Yost urged the board to release the data, even if some of it may have to be adjusted later on.

“But I would suggest to you that the data was probably bad last year in the same way and there’s conceivably a benefit at least to comparing year-to-year what was going on.”

Yost says he may not wrap up his investigation until the New Year, which means the final report card data may not come out until later in 2013.

Last winter, Democratic state lawmaker Matt Lundy questioned how Republican Lt. Governor Mary Taylor and Republican House Speaker Bill Batchelder were using state planes. Lundy claimed they were using the planes for convenience purposes, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

Republican Ohio Auditor David Yost has done an audit on the plane usage. Office spokeswoman Carrie Bartunek says Yost found Ohio does not have clear rules for how and when planes can be used.

We did not find any formal policies or procedures that actually cite when it’s appropriate or not appropriate to use a plane. Therefore, without those guidelines, it was difficult to say that any flight was inappropriate because there were no guidelines to match it to.

As part of his report, Yost recommends that the state sells one of the aircraft. Representative Lundy says he now will try to get the Ohio legislature to deal with the issue.

As legislators, we need to look at putting in place stronger guidelines, rules, regulations, laws regarding the use of state property including planes.

“And this includes colleges and universities. I think we need to tighten our belts and have greater accountability as to what is public purpose, public use,” Lundy says.

Yost’s report recommends specific steps that should be taken when coming up with rules and regulations for the plane. ….suggestions that Lundy says could be put into the proposed legislation.

Auditor Dave Yost on Thursday released his performance review of the transportation agency. He says about 42 percent of Ohio’s backhoes, excavators and other equipment are used only 5 percent of the time.

Yost said selling 178 underused and redundant heavy-equipment pieces would generate $3.1 million and avoid $885,000 in maintenance costs over 10 years.

The audit also found that nearly $500,000 could be saved annually by closing two rest areas in Muskingum and Guernsey counties that are close to other alternatives.

The state’s transportation director says he’s open to the auditor’s ideas for savings.

The advocates for lower taxes and smaller government say both of the hopefuls support those conservative principles, but Yost hurt himself when he dropped out of the Republican primary for attorney general and jumped into the race for Auditor.

Tea party activists wanted him to stay in the A.G.’s race and continue challenging a Republican candidate they don’t care for – former U.S. Senator Mike DeWine.

Tea Party leader Chris Littlton says when Yost abandoned that plan, he lost the faith the activists had in him.

Auditor candidate Dave Yost says he’ll move ahead, despite losing the Tea Party endorsement. He notes he has backing from many OTHERS — for example: the Republican party central committee, most Republican state senators, Republican county auditors, Republican county prosecutors, and conservative activist Ken Blackwell, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 2006.