Rand's specter halted Easley audit

It appears that the influence of state Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, helped keep secret an audit dealing with former first lady Mary Easley's salary at N.C. State University.

The salary audit has never been released by new state auditor Beth Wood, a Democrat. In an interview, she said the investigative audit raised questions about whether the first lady's $170,000 per year salary at NCSU was justified — but said NCSU officials made detailed counter arguments that would have led to a "he said/she said" audit.

But it turns out that Rand's involvement in an earlier audit — one that dealt with questionable overseas travel by Mary Easley — also played a role, J. Andrew Curliss reports. The Easleys had hired Rand, who is a lawyer and the powerful majority leader in the state Senate, to represent them. The move generated lots of talk because, for one, Rand has power over the state auditor's budget.

More after the jump.

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Rand said he no longer represents the Easleys in that matter and could not recall any conversation with Wood about the salary audit. If he did talk with her on it, he said, he would have told her that Easley's salary was justified. He says he remembers telling people that view as the controversy over the salary swirled last year, but couldn't recall specifically talking with Wood.

"I don't think I saw the report," he said. "I don't remember discussions... but I would have told her what I thought."

Wood said she did not talk with Rand about the salary audit and insisted that he did not talk with her.

She has also said she wanted to release the report, but then was convinced otherwise by her staff.

Still, Wood acknowledges that the idea of dealing with Rand on the audit was a factor.

According to her spokesman, Dennis Patterson, Wood told the auditors who worked on it that the salary comparisons they were making were weak and that they would likely face Rand over it.

"Knowing that Rand had represented Mary Easley after the travel audit and had ripped into that report, she told the auditors that Rand "would punch holes" in the NCSU report and raise serious issues about its credibility that would be hard to refute," Patterson said of how Wood handled the audit within her office. "The State Health Plan audit either had just been released or was about to be released and Beth said she did not want to give Rand or anyone else an easy shot at questioning the credibility of our audits."

Papers related to the salary audit have been turned over to federal investigators, but still have not been released to the public under a provision in law that keeps audit work documents secret.

Records turned over to federal investigators show that NCSU officials were bracing for its release. Then provost Larry Nielsen wrote on Jan. 6, 2009 that former auditor Les Merritt or Wood might "make a quick release of the report and response" from NCSU. "We need to jump on this," Nielsen wrote in directing a university spokesman to "develop a public statement" on its contents.

Then, in April, the staffer leading the audit from the auditor's office let NCSU officials know that nothing was coming out, saying Wood and her appointees had decided "not to go forward with the audit at this time." NCSU's internal auditor wrote to then-Chancellor James Oblinger and described it as a positive for the university.