McGuiness directed that $1,950 payment be issued through PayPal using a state credit card, which it was. On one occasion, Gross was owed a past-due balance for her final month of work in the auditor’s office. In fact, many of those payments were scrutinized and approved by the Division of Finance, a fact unveiled earlier in the week. Though the payments appear separate in the state’s financial records, Gross said she always received individual payments, even if the funds were derived from multiple sources. Some payments to My Campaign Group were paid out of the office’s general fund and others out of a COVID relief fund, Gross said, because her work on COVID initiatives met the requirements to be paid with those funds.
Those services included communications work and policy advisement, specifically surrounding COVID-19 initiatives and a task force of auditors’ offices from around the country aimed at tracking federal COVID relief funds.
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Under My Campaign Group, Gross billed the auditor’s office for professional services at a rate of $150 per hour. The state has since increased those thresholds to $100,000 and $10,000, respectively. They also charge that McGuiness paid those contracts in increments of just under $5,000, another threshold above which payments are required to be approved by the state’s Division of Finance. The state alleges that McGuiness’ office intentionally entered into contracts with those companies just beneath a $50,000 threshold that would require a public bidding process. Gross, who testified Wednesday morning, is a political consultant who owns two companies with which the Office of the Auditor engaged in professional contracts: My Campaign Group and Innovate Consulting, LLC. She’s accused of arranging public payments to a campaign consultant to avoid regulator scrutiny, hiring her daughter whose salary was deposited into a jointly-owned bank account, and attempting to intimidate employees who might help investigators looking into her conduct. McGuiness is defending herself against multiple felony and misdemeanor charges alleging conflict of interest, felony theft, non-compliance with procurement law, official misconduct and felony witness intimidation. Prosecutors called State Auditor Kathleen McGuiness’ daughter to the stand Wednesday to testify about her employment with the office, her personal bank account and her use of a state-owned vehicle.Įlizabeth “Saylar” McGuiness’ testimony followed that of Christie Gross, a political consultant to whom McGuiness is accused of structuring payments to avoid regulator oversight. STATE AUDITOR KATHLEEN MCGUINESS (LEFT) AND HER ATTORNEY, STEVE WOOD, ENTER THE KENT COUNTY COURTHOUSE IN DOVER ON JUNE 15, 2022.
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