Eight Years of Silence
Why Audit Transparency Is a Constitutional Obligation, Not a Suggestion

George Washington's Farewell Address is one of the most studied documents in American political history. Most people focus on his warnings about foreign entanglements and political factions. But buried in the Farewell Address is something that applies directly to Custer County, South Dakota in 2026:

Washington's framework was explicit: taxation requires public accountability. Not eventually. Not when it's convenient. Continuously. As a condition of the public trust that makes government legitimate in the first place.

Custer County has not published its required audit in the Custer County Chronicle — the county's official newspaper of record — for approximately eight years. State statute requires it. No Corrective Action Plan has been filed for the current audit findings. Monthly financial reports, required by law to be presented at commission meetings, are not being produced.

This isn't a technicality. By Washington's standard, it's a fundamental breach of the public trust that justifies taxation.

What the Law Actually Requires

South Dakota law is not ambiguous on this. County audits must be published in the county's official newspaper of record. This requirement exists for a simple constitutional reason: the people have a right to know how their money is being managed. Not to request it. Not to file a FOIA and wait. The government is required to put it in the paper where any citizen can read it.

Eight years. One audit available online. No CAP response for the current findings. Repeat audit findings on cash reconciliation, overspending, and internal controls — which the commission has acknowledged but not formally addressed.

Jefferson on the Currency of Democracy

Jefferson wrote that "information is the currency of democracy." He meant this literally: a self-governing republic cannot function if the governed don't have access to the facts that should inform their decisions. Elections become theater when voters don't know what their government has actually done with their money.

This is not a hypothetical concern in Custer County. Consider the police contract collapse covered in our previous post. The county's commission demanded a 72% increase in the city's law enforcement contract — from $435,000 to $750,000 — with no public cost breakdown. The commission's defenders say the old price didn't cover costs. Maybe they're right. But without published audits, without monthly financial reports, without publicly available fund balances, there is no way for a citizen to verify that claim.

The commission is simultaneously:

• Demanding more money from the city for law enforcement
• Refusing to publish the audits that would show whether the current money is being managed well
• Not producing the monthly financial reports that would show departmental spending in real time
• Not making fund balances available to the public

Jefferson's "currency of democracy" has been withheld. You are being asked to accept the commission's decisions about your money without the information that would let you evaluate whether those decisions are sound. That's not self-governance. That's administrative rule dressed up as republican government.

Lincoln's Warning: The Republic Dies From Within

In 1838, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. He was 28 years old. The country was still young. And Lincoln was already worried — not about foreign invasion, but about something more insidious:

Lincoln's concern was the erosion of republican principles from within — the slow normalization of decisions made outside proper process, of authority exercised without accountability, of a citizenry that accepts what it's told because challenging it is inconvenient.

Eight years of unpublished audits is not a dramatic event. It's quiet. It's bureaucratic. It's exactly the kind of incremental normalization Lincoln was warning against. Nobody's marching. Nobody's declaring an emergency. The commission just… didn't publish the audits. Didn't file the CAP. Didn't produce the monthly reports. And life went on, because most people weren't paying attention.

That's how the republic erodes. Not with a declaration. With a shrug.

Why This Connects Directly to SEAL SD

SEAL SD exists because property taxes in South Dakota are out of control, and the Core GRT Plan offers a constitutional alternative. But here's what I've learned building this organization: you cannot reform property taxes with commissioners who operate without transparency.

The argument for property tax abolition rests on the principle that citizens should have transparent, accountable control over how government is funded and how those funds are spent. If you replace property taxes with a Gross Receipts Tax but leave in place a commission that doesn't publish its audits, doesn't file CAPs, and doesn't produce monthly financial reports — you've changed the revenue mechanism but not the accountability problem.

Constitutional property tax reform and local government accountability are not separate issues. They're the same issue. The principle is identical: government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Consent requires information. Information requires transparency. Transparency requires compliance with the law.

What Eight Years of Silence Enables

When audits aren't published, several things become possible that shouldn't be:

• Unverifiable demands. The commission can claim that $750,000 is the real cost of dedicated law enforcement and nobody can check the math against audited financials.
• Lost grant eligibility. Federal grants, FEMA reimbursements, and state funding programs often require audit-clean status. Eight years of unaddressed findings and no CAP likely means Custer County is leaving money on the table — money that belongs to the taxpayers.
• Repeat failures go unaddressed. Audit findings on cash reconciliation and internal controls are documented. Without a formal CAP, there's no public accountability for whether those findings were actually fixed or just acknowledged and ignored.
• Voters make decisions without full information. June 2 is 53 days away. The commission's defenders are active on social media. But the audits — the primary source documents that would let any voter independently evaluate how the county has managed its money — aren't publicly accessible in the Chronicle where state law says they should be.

What Accountability Requires

This isn't complicated. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln weren't writing about complex policy. They were writing about the basics of self-governance. The people who pay taxes have a right — not a privilege, a right — to see how those taxes are being managed.

Three things restore that right in Custer County:

• Publish the audits in the Custer County Chronicle as required by state statute. All of them. Retroactively cover the gap years if possible.
• File the CAP for the current audit findings. Document what the findings were, what the county is doing to fix them, and when they'll be resolved. Put it on the record.
• Monthly financial reports at every commission meeting. Required by law. Every department. Every month. On the public record where any citizen can review them.

None of this requires new legislation. It requires commissioners who understand that the office they hold is a public trust, not a personal mandate.

Washington framed public accountability as "a very important source of strength and security." Not a technicality. Not an administrative burden. A source of strength. A republic that hides its books from its citizens is not governing — it's managing. There's a difference. The Founders built a government to be governed, not managed.

Eight years of silence is long enough.

Jerry Odom is the founder of SEAL SD. Sources: Washington Farewell Address (1796); Jefferson on democracy and information (various); Lincoln, Lyceum Address (1838); Custer County audit history and commission minutes (public record). South Dakota audit publication requirements: SD Codified Law.