A podcast with Jan Jutte, Washington’s former Acting State Auditor

Jan Jutte steered the Washington State Auditor’s Office through a major crisis when the then-elected State Auditor Troy Kelley was charged with federal financial crimes. In 2015, Jan was about to retire from her long career in public service, but instead stepped up as acting state auditor. 

We talk about the bizarre situation of telling your boss that they don’t get to make the decisions. Dealing with the press. Trying to put distance between professional work and politics. And how, at one point, Kelley decided he literally didn’t want to see Jan — but continued to leave her to runt the office while he focused on his legal defense.

TRANSCRIPT. I use an automated transcription service. When in doubt, refer to the audio. Thanks.

Wilson:
Wilson here today. We’re talking to Jan Jutte who, after 30 years in the public accountability business was about to retire until her boss, Washington state auditor Troy Kelley, was indicted on federal charges. Jan found herself leading the agency where she had spent her career through the greatest political crisis it had faced in more than a century. She did it with grace. She did it with poise. It was amazing to watch and I was there to watch it. I hope you enjoy this conversation with her about leadership, about ethics and honesty and how one handles a crisis. It’s obviously abbreviated. There was so much more that went on and Jan and I talked a little bit after recording this, how there’s many details we had to leave out, but suffice it to say, it’s still an amazing story. If you enjoy this, please check out my website, AdamEHwilson.com, where I have some other stuff for you. And with that away we go.

Wilson:
I am here with the one and only Jan Jutte, and we’re gonna talk about everything, but not everything. We’re gonna talk about a lot of things, Jan. But before we do please introduce yourself. And, and where are you from originally? I don’t know if I’ve ever asked this, like where you grew up.

Jutte:
So I’m Jan, Judy and I was born in Tacoma, Washington and spent the first 16, 17 years there went to Bellevue and finished high school in Bellevue. Spent a couple of years in Texas, outside of Houston, adopted a daughter there and ended up back in Olympia and, and in Olympia for 42 years now. Wow. And

Wilson:
I didn’t know. You spent time outside of Houston.

Jutte:
Yeah, I did. That’s where for spring, Texas. Small town outside of Houston. I went back there just recently. It’s not nearly as small as it was when I lived there. I think the highway’s like, I don’t know, eight lanes or 10 lanes or something now. yeah, it was a four lane highway that hardly had any traffic on it.

Jutte:
But time goes on.

Wilson:
So that’s right. Well, look what we’re gonna get into it because this, I think this is actually gonna be a bonus length episode by the time we get into it. Cause we have a ground to cover this. Let me I’m just gonna tell a, I’m gonna tell a little story so that we don’t have to like keep going back and telling all the dates about a little time Jan and I had with the one and only Troy Kelley, who was the state auditor. And we both worked for him at the state auditor’s office. Troy Kelley was elected state auditor in 2012 after what the press called a blistering campaign. And the blisters came from accusations dating back prior to his time in elected office. He was in the legislature before he was an auditor. But he was in the real estate business and business partners argued with him.

Wilson:
And there were suggestions that he was keeping at least some of these funds that he was supposed to partly repay. And it’s super complicated. We don’t need to get too far into it, but there was hot and heated debates about whether or not he had actually held onto money that he was otherwise supposed to return. After he won election in 2012, he took office in 2013 and there was basically no news about Troy Kelly until March of 2015, cuz he kept his head down after that campaign. But in 2015 March news breaks that federal agents have raided his house on and served a search warrant and the treasury department was in there rifling through his computers and this obviously roils politics, people, it hits them papers. There’s a lot of news. He is indicted, charged with an array of crimes related to his former business, including theft and money laundering.

Wilson:
And things are pretty off the hook until may when and Troy who he was Troy to us, I guess I’ll just keep calling Troy did something literally unprecedented, like never had happened before, which is, he said, oh, I’m gonna take a leave of absence from the office I was elected to fill. And for the reason, like he didn’t want to be a distraction. He didn’t want it. You know, there’s a, he wanted to get out of this fracas that was forming and there was a recall effort. And he said, Jan, our guest today, Jan, you are now the acting state auditor. And he disappeared. He just went away for a while off my radar off the news media’s radar, things were happening in his case. But as far as the office went, suddenly Jan found herself in charge.

Wilson:
And that went on till December of 2015, December of that year, when the legislators started saying that maybe we’ll just impeach him because they were not happy with his behavior. They felt like he had abandoned his office. And so to fight that off, he reappeared one day, like almost literally in the office in December, 2015, he was around in a sort of mysterious way until April of 2016 when his trial finally starts and things take another strange turn because after several days of deliberation, the jury is actually hung. They cannot come to a conclusion and it’s up to the prosecution, the feds to decide whether or not they’ll try again. And he is back in the office the next day after that trial, after that nonverdict came through he fairly promptly fired three senior staffers, including me and some good friends of mine.

Wilson:
But Jan was still around and Jan got to help manage the office through a very awkward nine months or so until his term expired. Troy did not run again for obvious reasons. He was the new state auditor, pat McCarthy took office in January of 2016. And she’s great. But he, Troy got to stick around for another trial in 2017. And I think it was December, he was finally convicted of nine felony charges, including possession of stolen property, making false declarations in a court proceeding and tax fraud. Interestingly, he was acquitted of high accounts of money laundering. So it was still this kinda weird mixed bag. Right. and then he used to keep this going. He kept fighting it for like four years and it wasn’t until a year ago, ish, March of 2021. He had exhausted all his appeals, meaning that he had appealed to the us Supreme court and been turned down unbelievable. And it was unbelievable and now it was finally time for him to serve his sentence, which at this point was one year, one day clearly like a message there. Like you’re, you’re gonna go to prison now. And since that was March of 2021, I have not seen a story saying that he is out, but I, yeah, he didn’t, I assume

Jutte:
He didn’t actually go in until mid or late June of last year.

Wilson:
Oh. So,

Jutte:
So there was still some other wranglings going on before he actually was to, you know, taken to into a federal prison north of Reno in, in California. Wow. Okay. And but with good behavior, this is may the, you know, getting mid-May I’m assuming that he is probably out probably freshly out. I mean, you know, probably not that long ago. Yeah. But I’m assuming that he is not in prison anymore, so

Wilson:
Well, yeah, I do wonder. And you know, the, the final note to make there is that although this was the biggest thing in the world in Washington political news in the early days as he left office, as these appeals wound down, you just don’t hear about ’em anymore. So you know, yeah. You have to go looking for the information to know what kind of like, what’s kind of like important to us, like what happened to that amazing climactic period, but yeah. Well then

Jutte:
That would be Austin Jenkins really followed it closely even to the point of doing enough research that he wrote a pretty big what I think was probably gonna be a beginning of a book. Hm mm-hmm but when, by that time, like you said, in the beginning, everybody was hot and heavy on it. And then when I took over and there was no more news, I mean, you know, the office just continued for a little while after I took over, I would have reporters coming in, but after a while it was like, Hm, they’re just running just like, they always ran. We’ll just watch for a great report.

Wilson:
And,

Jutte:
And so there really wasn’t much interest in what Austin was doing. So he stopped and he he’s the one who noticed that it had been rejected by the us

Wilson:
That’s

Jutte:
Right. Supreme court and that he was where he was gonna go. So I haven’t touched base with Austin to see if he knows if he’s out or not. Maybe Austin isn’t even checking anymore.

Wilson:
Yeah. It’d be, it’s like a, it is. And talking about coming down to individuals, it’s true that like Austin Jenkins stayed on top of that story and was reporting on things long after everyone stopped. Yeah. And it is, I don’t know, it’s a, it’s a strange, quiet, weird end to a strange

Jutte:
Was really surprised how quickly the interest just dropped off and, you know, the public just said, oh, it’s over. No, it’s not, but okay.

Wilson:
Yeah. yeah. well, you know, I, when I think about it, I feel like Troy was kind of the archetypal and battled ruler, the luckiest king, surrounded by people, you know, he, he really viewed himself as hard done and was, but also, you know, people questioned his ability to do the job. And he’s just like there as an archetypal sort of surrounded leader figure who maybe did ill and you, Jan were sort of like the other archetype here, like the wise steward who was in no way, you know, like implicated in any of it and were asked to like, hold up the other end of the spec. You know, if he’s like the strange quasi-criminal turned out, actually criminal end of the poll, you had to be like the upright auditor end of the pool. Right. And if you think I’m exaggerating, people just stick around. But this is kind of a, we talked about this a little bit beforehand, Jan, this is like a story in three acts and let’s start with act one act one is you think you’re gonna retire after a long career with the’s office, but then, then this, the, the federal law enforcement shows up with a subpoena. They search his home, it’s all over the newspapers. Start there. I mean, okay, well, what are your thoughts when you look back in

Jutte:
That time? I remember it was a nice sunny day. It was a Friday afternoon. And you know what Friday afternoons are like in most people’s offices, you’re kind of winding down and mm-hmm, , you know, you’re laughing with your coworkers, those who came in on a Friday that don’t have Fridays off. And, and, you know, you just kind of you know, looking forward to the weekend and I get a phone call and they tell me you need to come up to the, I was in the sunset building and they told me, you need to come up to the insurance building and said, why? Because we’re gonna be served with a subpoena in a little bit from the feds you need to get up here. So,

Wilson:
Yeah. And then to be clear with folks like you’re working, sunset’s kinda like an office building where most of the state auditor’s office work actually happens when they say you have to come to the insurance building, it means come onto the capital campus with the big dome and the big columns, the official that’s where the actual office of the auditor is. Like, you have to get down to HQ with the big stone steps in front, because something big and official is about

Jutte:
To happen. Right. And, and at this point in time, I had been the, the director of legal affairs. So subpoena, you know, called Jan and I was in the process of becoming the director of operations. And so it was kind, kind of both positions really, you know, at least in my mind when I got the phone call, that’s what I’m thinking, cuz I’m thinking we’re getting a federal subpoena for our office, you know, for

Wilson:
Right.

Jutte:
You know, some fraud we investigated or something. I mean, which I thought was really weird cuz we always cooperate with him. Why, why the subpoena? So I, you know, I jump in my car, drive up to the Capitol campus. I go into my office up there and go down the hall to the person who called me and said, what’s going on? And they shut the door. Well, we’re gonna get served with this subpoena. And this is what it’s about. And they tell me this whole story about Troy and it’s like, what is being char there only as being chart, they’re investigating him for fraud and money launder the state auditor. I mean, I I’m just shocked. And then you know, about this time, the FBI shows up with the subpoena and our conversations are in the over

Wilson:
Your eyes have just slightly shrunk down to normal sides when the FBI walks in. Yeah

Jutte:
so, yeah, I mean it was just really strange. However, the records that they wanted from us were really not significant. They were they were records of people that Troy had brought on you know, like their payroll records and the work they’d done and those sorts of things. Okay. We produced that and delivered it. I actually drove to Tacoma and hand delivered it to the FBI sometime the next week. Okay. All right. And, and at that point I was designated the contact for the FBI. So from then on when they had questions mm-hmm they came to me I was also the executive level over public records, which you can imagine what something like this would do to public records requests. Oh yeah. I was also the contact person for public records when there was a concern. I mean, you, they could just file it and it would go through the normal process. I didn’t need to be involved in that, but, but if a press person had a problem or perceived problem, those phone calls would come to me or right. You know, why, why are you withholding such and such? You know what, whatever,

Wilson:
You know,

Jutte:
I’m not really busy, really fast

Wilson:
that’s right. I’ll try and remember to talk about public records. Cause there’s actually, I think some when we’re talking about like the transparency,

Jutte:
The great, we, we came up with some great solutions that I think have been mimicked by other organizations now. But we just, that was a combination of our attorney who helped us brainstorm and, and Mary, who is our public records officer, just trying to figure out the best way to manage this barrage and not have anybody feel like we were stonewalling them because we weren’t, we were overwhelmed. We have one public records person.

Wilson:
exactly.

Jutte:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was,

Wilson:
She can only do so much. Yeah.

Jutte:
Overwhelming, unbelievably overwhelming. We had to bring in other people to help her. I mean, we couldn’t keep up, but anyway. Yeah, yeah,

Wilson:
Yeah. We’ll maybe we’ll cross that bridge and act two, but act one. So now you’re, you’ve been subpoenaed, you’ve delivered a few papers. But what what, what do you think of when you think back to like it becoming when he’s indicted and now this is like front page news, like, what was your first inkling like? Okay, now, now this is an actual crisis.

Jutte:
Well, to be honest, my first thought was he needs to resign. He needs to step away. Mm-Hmm I mean, you know, you have to realize at this point in time, I have 30 years, over 30 years into the office. Right. was ready to retire, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a love for this office. I just think that in, in fact here I am five years retired, I’m still calling it our office

Wilson:

Wilson:
That’s right.

Jutte:
It will always be a

Wilson:
Part of you were invested. Yeah.

Jutte:
I mean, the work that this office does is amazing work that the public has no clue really as to mm-hmm the benefit that this office provides them by making sure that state and local government is you know, spending their money legally and appropriately. And that we’re on top of frauds. And I mean, we, and it’s an office that has extremely high percentage of college graduates and mm-hmm, , it’s very professional people. I mean, it’s just a standout office. And to think that there was this man who had been there this very short amount of time was soiling the name of the state auditor’s office. I mean, my, my first thought was he just needs to resign. He needs to step away. Right. And,

Wilson:
And you weren’t alone. You weren’t alone. I mean, like, I think as soon as people and I don’t just mean in the office, but like, I think as soon as this broke and it, it, it hit the nightly news and it was on the drive time radio the immediate expectation in the political spheres, like, well then you’re just gonna have to resign and fight this. If you say you didn’t do it fine, but you have to get outta here. And I think it really blew some political minds that he said, no. Yeah. Like Troy Kelly was like, no, , I’m going to stick around. And that’s that’s you know, I remember

Jutte:
Because Troy thinks about Troy, he doesn’t, he, none of the decisions he made were for the benefit of the office, they were all for the benefit of Troy. Now some of them ended up being to the benefit of the office, but mm-hmm , that was just, you know an accident . I mean, that yeah. Was it was all about Troy.

Wilson:
It’s true. It’s true. You know, and I don’t, you know, it’s kinda somewhere in there’s there’s like the human element and I, yeah, I was talking to my wife, Jessica, before we got on just last night, like yeah. You know, I wonder if he’s outta jail yet. And you know, it’s kind weird and it’s, you know, I also remark, you know, like Jan and I don’t have any like animus, but, you know, he was not, he wrecked a lot of havoc and did a lot of damage and, and Jessica made exactly the same point you did, because it was all about Troy Kelly. Like every decision was about Troy and he just has a very narrow worldview. So everything he did, you know, certainly beforehand, but definitely, definitely once things got hot and heavy, then every decision was made with a, a, a, his own personal viewpoint, which again, sets up this weird thing where you were left with the job of trying to separate his personal problems from the professional work of what’s supposed to be an accountability and transparency office.

Wilson:
Right. well, let’s talk about that conversation. So at some point there’s like a month of editorials and the, the, I, I remember the press literally were trying to like catch him coming into the office. Like physically, if you guys don’t know, you know, like out there in TV land, a podcast land, you know, like when you have to get footage of the guy that’s being accused and you’re a cameraman for a TV station, you actually have to physically find the guy you can’t like stage a walk through. So they would try to find him when he was coming up, those stone steps. And it was like this weird game of cat and mouse where he’d somehow he would get in the back door when they were at the front door and the, you know, it was hilarious. So crazy.

Jutte:
Some of that coverage was some of that footage was unbelievable. I mean, he thought he, I think he thought he was making himself look good, but he didn’t

Wilson:
I had the same impression, like he’s like, I did a really good job there. It’s like, you literally were filmed running away. , you know, ,

Wilson:
there was a terrible moment for Thomas Shapley, who was directors of communications, where I think a hoard of press showed up in the insurance building, you know, the big officials building and’re out in the lobby. And like, we wanna talk to Troy and I’m pretty sure that Thomas felt like Troy was gonna come out and say a few words. And then didn’t, and then it was just kinda like, this is again like this isn’t, if you’re a news consumer, this is like something you read about in a flat piece of paper, or you watching a flat screen, but in real life, when you’re in these situations, it’s a, three-dimensional, you know, a dozen reporters moving over, Thomas Shapley, Thomas Shapley in the doorway being like, I don’t think he’s gonna come out and somewhere he’s like listening behind him because the guy is physically there somewhere moving around, you know, but this goes, this goes on for like a month. And then tell me about how you learned that you were gonna be in charge and he was gonna step aside. And, and what went through your mind when he came up with that plan?

Jutte:
So first of all, the week before I found out it was gonna be me, I had been in talking with him, making my recommendation, which was not me

Wilson:

Jutte:
We, we had a chief of staff who was amazing and he wasn’t high on Troy’s list at that particular left time, because, well, just because they had different styles. And anyway, I was trying to make my case that he really was the best person to run this office in Troy’s absence. But then the Monday before I, I was ultimately to take over, I was driving home from work. I was in his, in an area at the time that didn’t have great cell service, but I could see that it was Troy calling. So I answered it. And of course he talks really softly. I wear hearing aids, I have trouble hearing him to begin with. And then I’ve got a poor connection. So I’m trying to follow what he’s saying to me. And so when we got, when he got all done, I said, okay, I need to repeat to you what I think you said to me. And so I repeat that you are, you are designating me as acting state auditor, is that correct? Yes. And it’s gonna be May 4th. Yes, that’s correct. So I was almost home by that time. So when he and I got done talking, I got home and I called the other members of the executive team because I was sure he didn’t and he had right. And I didn’t want them to hear it some other way.

Wilson:
Mm-Hmm

Jutte:
and then I sat down and just started thinking about what that meant. And the, I irony of this whole thing was my original retirement date was May 1st. And he was delegating to me as of May 4th. Now he already agreed to stay on for a few months to implement a new position, which was director of administration. So I had, I had planned a trip of a retirement trip starting that weekend of following May 1st. And I didn’t cancel it. I told him when I was gonna stay on for a period of time to implement this position, I was still gonna take this retirement trip with my daughter and son-in-law two grandkids. And he had agreed to that. So anyway, so this is what I mean, I have all these things swimming in my head. I have a trip planned,

Wilson:
Right? Yeah. This is like normal human stuff. Like, wait, wait, wait,

Jutte:
Wait. On the day I was gonna retire, gonna start this new position. And, and now I have just committed to staying through the rest of his term, not a few months. I just have all this going on. It really wasn’t as much about running the office. I’d been in the office over 30 years. I’d been over almost every division of the office. I’d I’d done audits myself. I mean running the office, wasn’t, wasn’t all the stuff that was going through my mind. It was all this other stuff.

Wilson:

Wilson:
And then, well then you make it official. I remember there’s a great, at least a memory of mine is that this has to be made public. And I think there was some inclination that this is, this was gonna be his solution to the problem. But you ended up having like an actual press conference where you talked to people about this and it was well attended. And I remember one of the stories, I think it was the Seattle times remarked that, you know, you’re in an office where Troy’s stuff is on his desk. Troy’s stuff is on his wall, you know, you know, but standing on the carpet, you know, it is just like you meeting folks in the office is Jan Jude .

Jutte:
Yeah, that, that was my first ever pre first ever, and last press conference. And, and to Thomas’s credit, it was Thomas who said, you know, this is, this is the best way to handle this. Jan. Let’s just invite everybody and let’s let, ’em meet you. And you just talk about your vision and you’ve got this, you, you know, this office, you’ve got this and they’ll be here comfortable with what’s happening. And so we did, and I had, you know, three of the members of the executive team standing behind me off to the side who were the other three people that Troy was considering. And they were behind me, not, I mean, they were behind me literally, but they were behind me in spirit. They were gonna that’s right. Me through this. And that was abundantly clear. But yeah, it went, it went, well, I the one, this one is probably fine.

Jutte:
You know, they kept throwing question after question after question at me and I, I was able to handle, but I remember that I had been meeting Troy to give him some, oh, I think it was, you know, we were trying to figure out from the time we got served with these papers and Troy thought maybe he would go on administrative leave. We were trying to figure out the legal ramifications of that. So I had some right ag memos on, you know, what that meant and how we might do it because there is no such thing as administrative leave for an elected official. Right. So I mean, I, I asked a whole bunch of questions during this period of time of the ag office that had never been asked in the history of the state. So,

Wilson:
Well, yes, I was

Jutte:
Sending his papers to him anyway. And so we decided to meet at, at an Asian restaurant in DuPont and they just kept asking me question after question after question. And finally I said, I don’t remember the name of the restaurant it’s by Starbucks in DuPont and find that TEI chicken. And so did, and they just laughing. It was like, what more can I tell you?

Wilson:
The noodles? We’re fine. Yes. It’s so true. And there were, yeah. yeah. The demand for information is off the charts. The questions are unprecedented and, you know just so everybody knows you, if you are an elected to an office, like you are the state auditor, then you are not like you are the public servant, but you weren’t an employee who clocks in, clocks out. You don’t yes. Have vacation time. You are the state auditor and you’re paid to be the state auditor. And you’re

Jutte:
The state 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

Wilson:
Wherever you are. Right. Yeah. Unless you, and even if you say otherwise, like, so, and so’s making these decisions, you’re delegating that you’re still somewhere, the legal chain goes all the way up to you and from you to the public. Cause the public picked you to handle, to be in charge of everything that happens in that office. So yes, at things like, oh, I’m not gonna be the auditor right now and Jan’s going to do it. It raises like, you know, how does that work do? And, you know, he made a big deal of not getting paid and not getting, you know, he, he tried to like somehow separate all those, like HR benefit stuff to make it, especially clear that, Hey, look, I’m backing out. You guys want me to resign, but I’m not gonna resign. I’m just backing out for a while. But at the same time, if you talk to a legal scholar, they’re like, wait a minute. You know, like he’s still around. He didn’t give up his office. So in theory, he could have come back at any moment and just said, I decided we’re not gonna go right anymore. We’re going left. I don’t wanna go top. I wanna go bottom, whatever. But we’ll get to that. That’s act

Jutte:
Two. Yes, we will.

Wilson:
so I do think like there’s something to talk about. There is like let’s as a, as a example of the difference in your style and talking about this demand for like, what’s going on, what’s happening is, is auditor’s office in chaos, are those public records requests. Everyone wanted all of his calendars. They wanted every email he ever sent. They wanted to know everything in anything Onri in writing that was going on with Troy Kelly. And we, I, we only had one public records person. We were going as fast as we could. And we did. I, the thing that stuck out to me is like, we just started like taking, like once we had gone through like say the emails and said, this is what’s publicly disclosable, we just put it up on the website. You know, you talk about like being open. We’re like, here it is everybody, if you wanna look. And

Jutte:
And in, in part that was because, you know, we’d have 15 press people asking us for, you know, public records, you know, emails and calendars. And, but they would all have a little bit different parameters. And you know, so each one had to be handled independently. And so we just said, let’s start putting ’em up on the website. They’re public records that, I mean, what’s to hurt with that. And then if, you know reporter number four sees that all the records they wanted really are in the one that we just filled, then they can cancel theirs. Or they at least have them earlier because part of the accusation was they didn’t want one press person getting information before they got their information. Well, right. You know? Okay. I get, I get that whole competition thing for you, but I don’t know how we manage that internally. Right. So that was our solution. And that, that was in part, you know, brainstorming between myself, our attorney and our public records person. We just said, you know, we wanna be as transparent as possible. How do we demonstrate that? And I think that became a Best’s practice. I mean, I think we were really praised a lot for mm-hmm us taking that and just saying, here it is, we, we have nothing to hide. As soon as we redact something, there it is. It’s out on the net, go get it.

Wilson:
Right. Yeah. It’s a start of a theme or it was part of, I don’t think it was a start, but it was a example of a theme that you struck that, you know, and as you often point out, you know, there’s other people involved, the executive team at Sao was very good and there was a sort of like, we’re going to be the best auditor’s office we can be anyway. And Troy’s problems are Troy’s problem. So yeah. Talk about that where, you know, it’s probably a little much to say, well, what’s your vision when you had just been like, Hey, you get to here’s the keys to the car, start driving . But you know where did that tone come from and how did it serve you in act two, which is the, now you now you have business cards to say, Jan, Judy acting state

Jutte:
Well, let go back and just say one more thing about act one. When after the phone call on Monday night I asked Troy if he and I could meet on Tuesday, he didn’t always come in every day. So I didn’t know, but he did. And we sat down and I said, look, before I accept this position, I’ve got some, I’ve got some requirements. If I’m gonna run this office, I’m, you’re not gonna interfere. I will make my own decisions. You don’t get to give me input. I’ll give you reports, you know, every week, every two weeks, once a month, whatever of what’s happening, but you don’t get to question what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. What was some of the other, I mean, there was a laundry list of things that you know, oh, that I, we, this office, I will not, Thomas will not take any questions regarding your charges.

Jutte:
That is your personal thing. We will talk about Sao. We’ll talk about what, how, what we’re doing internally. We’ll take care of public records. We’ll do all of those things. But your thing, if we get phone calls, we will refer those phone calls to you. Or if you wanna give us your contact, your attorneys’ contact information will return, will refer them to your attorney. And he agreed to all of those things. Now, some of those things will fall apart as we move forward into phase two . But it’s important that people understand. I, I knew this was a risk and I knew that we had to come to an agreement right up front that if I’m the boss, I’m the boss. If I’m not, I’m retiring.

Wilson:
That is an extraordinary deal, right? Yes. It’s. I mean, I love that you were so upfront and to think about this, you’re like, you’re saying, well, fine, I’ll take over, but to my decision’s not yours. And yes, this is a very important again, getting that line in the sand that like, if you, they ha, if the world wants to talk about Troy Kelly and Troy Kelly’s charges, then they have to go talk to Troy Kelly and his legal team. Yeah.

Jutte:
They have nothing to do that. The state of Washington has nothing to do. This is between him and the federal government for things that happened long before we even knew there was a Troy Kelly, we have no role in this.

Wilson:
And it didn’t, it was, well, it

Jutte:
Didn’t take very long for people to realize that and they quit calling. So, yeah,

Wilson:
But I mean that again, like not everybody would’ve taken that tact. It was the right one to do clearly in hindsight. And it’s just, again, I think like a, a great decision when you think about like a crisis decision making, right. You know, like when you think about how to lead an organization through a crisis, like splitting that off early was like brilliant and necessary and led to like, what I thought was a pretty idyllic maybe that’s too strong a word, but it was a compared to that big explosion in controversy and crisis. That second act where Troy Kelly has faded into the background for most of us, you are making decisions. And it seemed to me that the office went rolling right along like the audits were being done. The work was, and the work was not being questioned. Cause I know we spend a lot of time thinking about, well, now if we put out an audit saying, well, this person broke this law or they didn’t follow this, this they’ll be like, well, what do you know? You’re the auditors office and your guys, you know, yeah. Like in the stocks downtown. So

Jutte:
Yeah. I, I just thought it was important to establish that cuz we will see later in this conversation that that agreement fell apart. He forgot about that agreement again, because it was all about Roy, but

Wilson:
Right. Yeah.

Jutte:
No, but yeah. You know, again, I make the point, this office has extremely good policies, procedures, really extremely good management structure. And we talk a lot internally and keep each other informed. It was easy to run the office. Plus I have 30 years of experience on both state and local side. Most of it on the local side, but on the state side also I was not unknown to our audit clients. I might have been unknown to the public, but I was far from unknown to our audit clients. And I had become a national speaker on, on governmental auditing and accounting. So I was even known to those national organizations because I had spoken at their conferences. So I didn’t have to prove myself to anybody in the office, anybody that we audited or anybody that we interacted with nationally which made it, I’m gonna say easy, but , I mean that there were other things, but, but it did make it easy.

Jutte:
I mean, and our staff is so professional. I mean, all I had to do is say nothing has changed. Keep on doing what you’re doing. If you need help because a client has more questions than you feel you can answer, you know, have them call your manager, have them call Kelly, have them call me. And we’ll take care of it. We got very few of those calls. These people know what they’re doing. They have relationships with these audit clients. They know them. We just went on, I, we didn’t miss one date of issuing reports. No reports got delayed.

Jutte:
Yeah, the signatures got changed on the bottom of the report, but Yeah. So I mean that part of this job was amazing. And the one thing that it did was solidify the executive team I’ve been in this office had been in this office for over 30 years. I don’t know, probably 24 or 25 of those years. I’d been in management. Mm-Hmm I had never, there always was somebody on executive team who had their own little agenda. Not now once we, once we were in this position, we were all in it together.

Wilson:
Right, right. There’s that sort of like unification of like, if you’re under pressure, then we’re gonna yes. Pull together and we’re

Jutte:
Gonna, yeah. I didn’t have to worry about a single person on that team, on the executive team talking about something they, that we said we weren’t gonna talk about. Or because there were things that we didn’t want to get to the field staff. They didn’t need to know it. They, it would’ve just stressed them out. We were dealing with it. But, and those things stayed within the executive team as they should have. And that, I, I never once had to worry about if somebody was off doing something that might cause me a problem. They weren’t, they were right there for me. And I had excellent people. I mean, I had, you know, I had Diane Perry in over administration who had been over administration at state patrol watery at DSHS. Right. You could handle it. Yes. I had Chuck file over performance audit need I say anymore. I mean, I had Kelly who had been, you know, director of local government for a number of years. I mean, I just had such a strong executive team that it was amazing.

Wilson:
It was, it was a kind of, it was a cast of characters. You know, there are a few folks who are still in the office, but a lot of them like you, you know were, you know, like they were near retirement, they had decades of experience. And so it was kind of like an ACE squad of like, if you need steady people who know how this works, you had a pretty incredible cast. I, you know we mentioned him, but not by the name, Doug Cocker I’m the chief of staff was himself, a county auditor. Yeah. And I really enjoyed Doug. He definitely wasn’t Troy style. Cause if Troy was spoke softly and spoke to three people, Doug Cocker spoke loudly and spoke to the whole room every time. But he literally the guy, you know, as you know,

Jutte:

Wilson:
Yeah. He as a old, like kind of a old school politician, should he knew every person’s name like, oh, that was his, I felt like that was like, he saw his job description was like, your job is to learn the name and the interests of every person who works. Cause it was

Jutte:
Like four and he pretty much did all 400.

Wilson:
It was amazing. I never was in a room with him at any kind of office meeting where he could not like, Hey Caitlin, how are you? You know?

Jutte:
Or in the middle of some do you know? So and so on team. So and so, and they did this

Wilson:
Yeah. , it’s true. I remember Barb Hinton who was the, the lead auditor of Kansas’ legislative audit division was also with us at that time. So it was, it was a pretty remarkable squad and I mean, what’s do you have like a, a moment that sticks out that when you thought, okay, actually we’re gonna do this we’re we’re we are making this happen. Like we’re running the ship.

Jutte:
I don’t think I ever doubted it from the very beginning. I mean, I knew that people going in, I was part of the executive team. I knew who I had in place going in and I knew this office inside and out that wasn’t my worry. My worry was the press, the external stuff, the public records. That’s really where, where my concern was. And you know, you talk about Doug. I mean, Doug immediately put together a plan of making sure I got around the state to all the local government associations, whatever they had going on. So that mm-hmm and if they didn’t have anything going on, then we set up a specific appointment so that they knew I was on board. I had not changed my phlo. I mean, you know, just, just needed to make that connection.

Wilson:
And can’t reassure, ’em like, I’m here.

Jutte:
Yeah, yeah. I’m here. We’re gonna continue on and you have my phone number, call me if you need me. I mean mm-hmm and it was well received by everybody. So yeah, I mean it, I, I just knew all aspects of the office were covered. It was all the other stuff that really was more of a concern to me

Wilson:
Makes

Jutte:
Sense. I’m not a politician, which in part maybe makes why, part of the reason that Troy and I are at opposite ends, I’m a profession, right. Who wants to see this office succeed? Because it does an amazing thing for the state, for this people of this state versus a politician who wants to stroke their ego and continue to have a political job. That wasn’t my, I mean, I made it clear from the very beginning. The governor met with me that same day. I had the press conference and I made it clear to him from the very beginning. I’m not running for this office. It’s not right on my list at all. I will get us through this term and somebody else will take over.

Wilson:
Right. Well, you know, and I, I feel like we have to acknowledge that that was governor Jay Insley and his crew. And they were definitely in my view, helpful, like they, oh yes, this was not a case of them like cutting the office loose and being like, well, , you know, it looks like your ships burn. See it. I felt like they did as much as they could do because it is a separately elected official who’s in charge of the auditor’s office. And then there’s the governor who runs most statewide executive agencies. But so, and there, there can, and there should be limits to like what one official can do to influence another’s agency. But in the, I, I, you know, I don’t think anybody will ever know how much like that kind of back chatter and support there can be between particularly, you know, when the governor’s office holds the keys to, to the budgeting systems, to the you know, whatever the HR systems, you know, the computer systems, you know, they were in any way trying to undermine us was my, if anything, trying to prop

Jutte:
Us up fact, the governor does have the authority to ask the attorney general to put an observer in, in an elected official’s office that they have concerns about. So had, had, he had concerns with me after he and I talked, he could have asked the attorney General’s office to put an observer in our office and report back to the governor as to whether we were yeah. So,

Wilson:
But that didn’t happen.

Jutte:
That didn’t happen. But when you and Thomas and Doug got fired, he was gonna fire me. And that’s what stopped him. Wow. Because

Wilson:
He, well, that’s see. Yeah. ,

Jutte:
We’re getting ahead of story again.

Wilson:
Don’t jump ahead. Don’t jump ahead. That’s the cl battle. Okay. So this is we’re in phase two and things, so things are running fairly well and you know the audits are getting done just so everyone knows. There’s like over 2000 local governments in Washington, cities, counties, fire districts, water districts, every one of them gets audited. There’s like 2000 audits put out every year and this, so it’s, the auditor’s office is not like you got a couple jobs to do. It does a lot of work and that work just kept right on humming. And the audits went out every week, like they’re supposed to but then yeah you, you know, you reference like Troy started to forget some of that deal. And as we got into the fall we started hearing political rumblings. Like you, you know, again, yeah. This sort of this world of like, Hey, I’m a little city and I’m worried that you guys aren’t gonna do my audit properly. And those people are being taken care of, but to the larger scale political apparatus of this state, they’re like, oh, ho, ho, ho. You know, this guy just like walked out. He should have resigned now he’s not in office, but he still holds the office. And the trial hasn’t happened yet. And there begins to be this rumbling of like, we’re just going to impeach him. And this is like a bipartisan thing.

Jutte:
He got, he got signed by a large number. I don’t remember anymore of a bipartisan telling mm-hmm design. Yes.

Wilson:
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, tell me about that. Like, when did you start getting the feeling like, oh, he might be, he might be back.

Jutte:
Well, at first I thought maybe he was gonna be gone.

Wilson:
.

Jutte:
But then kind of out of the blue, I didn’t, I mean, I knew that the legislators had sent the, these letters, you know, saying they wanted him to resign. The governor had sent a letter telling him to resign a as we were moving towards this session. And and all of a sudden I’m sitting at home in the evening, you know, watching brainless, nighttime TV and my phone rings and it’s Troy and I’m thinking, oh, brother .

Jutte:
And he informs me that he and his attorney have decided he’s going to come back to the office the next day. And I, the next day, the next day. And I said, oh, Troy, please don’t the office is running well, the staff will be upset over this. This is, but again, my argument was about the office, which I should have known better. I should have been thinking about things I could say that would be to benefit to him, but it was all because the legislature was now in the process of I lost the word

Wilson:
Impeachment,

Jutte:
Impeachment, and mm-hmm they were going to impeach him because he had abandoned the office. And so the only way he could stop that impeachment was to come back. And he assured me that even though he would take back his title of state auditor, and I would no longer be acting state auditor, I would still run the office as if I was acting state auditor. He just wanted to stop the impeachment.

Wilson:
Yeah. Yeah. He just wanted to save his own hide there, which, and so, and his own pride. And I mean, to, again, trying to be fair to Troy Kelly, he I’m sure to this day believes he was totally innocent. And he felt like if to be impeached and removed from office was like, you know, on what grounds I am totally innocent. But that was a crazy day. And I,

Jutte:
Well, I think the other, I think the other thing was, you know, at this point he’s spending a ton of money on attorneys. And by coming back, even though he wasn’t actually working, he could reinstate his benefits and his pay. Mm-Hmm and I think that was also a consideration. I mean, I think he could now see that this was probably going to go through whatever money he had set aside. Oh yeah. And, and he needed money. So it was a combination, but again, it’s all about Troy. It’s not about the office. It’s not about what’s best for the office or the state. It’s about the best for drawing.

Wilson:
Oh, well, yeah, absolutely. But it, it is kind of like, again, just the, the strange of this episode of the way, the sort of tragic quality of it is like, I I’m guessing now, but I feel like when they said, well, how much ill gotten gains are we talking about? It was somewhere around a million dollars, a million dollars of, I gotten gains of which I feel like if I remember this correctly, he like immediately, once he got an attorney and he was charged, he gave like $300,000 back, right. Oh like, well, here’s a down payment to show my good faith. Well then now you’re down to 600,000 something. Right. You know I forget how much exactly he put in there, but then he’s paying like five attorneys for what would turn out to be like this week long or more jury trial that I am sure burned through. I mean, I’m sure it was like a half million dollar defense at least just to get through that first round and then he had another trial. So it is kind of this interesting scenario just for him financially in that, like, he got rich through means that we now know were not entirely.

Jutte:
And, and toward you, you say it was a, a million and that is the, the amount that they had documented, but there mm-hmm . But if you do some analysis of it, the FBI would say that it, it is probably 3 million. It’s just that you have all the records to be able to prove the 3 million. So they prove the million, which, you know, we do, we do when we do fraud audits too. There’s sure there’s a certain amount of that money. That’s just, you know, it costs you $5 to go find a dollar of it. So you just quit. Mm-Hmm but yeah, so it it’s up to millions of money.

Wilson:
So right on, on the table, but I am sure that whatever, even three is probably gone by now.

Jutte:
Oh, oh, absolutely.

Wilson:
Absolutely. Like he is in fact, his

Jutte:
Second, second trial, he asked for a public defender, but he wasn’t given the public defender because he wouldn’t sell or Mortgage’s house and he wouldn’t take out his 401k. Geez. So,

Wilson:
Yeah, my gosh. Yeah, my gosh. Okay. All right. Yeah. Back to the story. the finances aside, but its clearly did not work out and yeah, it just kind of gross to think about. So he, he comes back and I, I remember this day because this is when Thomas Shapley, the communications director is like, I am done with this guy. I am not doing, I’m not gonna stand out there in the lobby and talk to reporters who I’m supposed to tell the truth to on his behalf. And so then I got to go up there he’s like, oh, battlefield promotion, Thomas Thomas is not going. So you get to go Wilson and well

Jutte:
In sports next up

Wilson:
that’s right, exactly, exactly. And I thought, you know, what’s interesting is that it went fine because this was a slightly different Troy, right? This is a Troy that’s been out for a while. And not that he was suddenly forthcoming and apologetic or anything, but it worked fine to be like, here’s, here’s a couple reporters I wanna talk to. And he talked to him, here’s another couple and you wanna talk to him and then you tell all of ’em the same thing I am back officially. I am innocent. I blah, blah. You know, it was just like, kinda like I’m Troy and this is what I’m doing. So that was okay in like kind of the inverse way of like the big, first big explosion was like, oh man, this is chaos and confusion. And now Troy’s gotta go, Troy comes back. But it’s not really back. Right? Like he’s not doing anything that I could tell that was like really interfering with the office. He was kind of symbolically back. Am I reading that right? From your perspective?

Jutte:
Yes. When he first came back, it was pretty much what he told me. I’m gonna come back, I’m gonna make appearances periodically, but you’re still running the office. So just keep going the way it’s been going. And so we did that for a while and I thought, okay, well this will work till the end. I can do, I can do this.

Wilson:
Right. Yeah. That went on for a couple months. Cuz he is getting really, his mind was on his trial. Yes, yes. Clear. Well everybody’s would, but I mean, I think that his mind was, you know, 23 hours a day, except for the one where he is probably asleep was working on that trial. But that takes us to act three, which is like now he really is on trial. he’s so now you know, we’re doing our job and, but he’s literally on trial and the coverage is back and it’s a bizarre thing. There’s kind of a spectacle cuz it’s again about financial misdeed. So hard to piece apart, hard to make the argument. So share your memories. Jan, how did it go when your wa let’s stop right there? What were your thoughts during that period where you were like trying to keep things operating? And literally the boss, the state auditor of Washington is on trial

Jutte:
and the presser showing him on TV every night, they’re getting the most unflattering pictures of his expressions to put on TV at night. this, this whole 21 months really taught me a lot of things about press. Right. you know, if, if you’re not in their favor, you’ll never have a picture that is flattering if you not in their favor, every picture will be flattering I never had a picture that was anything other than, you know, very, very good. I mean, right. You know, anyway

Wilson:
Well some of that is like an accurate reflection of reality, you know in that, like you stood in front of the cameras and smiled and answered questions till you were like, literally explaining what you had for lunch. Right. which engenders a certain like amount of credibility and Troy would literally sometimes he would talk, but more often he would, he had, yeah, he had these strange expressions on his face. Like he was pained to be having to talk to you or,

Jutte:
You know, losing weight. I mean, it was pretty obvious. Yeah. Yeah.

Wilson:
Mm-Hmm he didn’t look well at all. No, he did not. I mean, who would, but yeah.

Jutte:
Yeah. So anyway, back to your question so it, it was a difficult time. I tried to convince him not to take his pay while the trial was active to just go back on leave mm-hmm , you know but, and you know, if you don’t wanna actually take leave, at least don’t take your pay. Because I just think the office is gonna be ridiculed and I don’t want this overshadowing, the good work we’re doing. And as it turns out the press, really, I mean, you know, they did report that he was being paid, but they didn’t make as big a deal out of it as they could have. Mm-Hmm and we really didn’t get the public calling us or anything. I mean, we got a couple, I mean, I took a couple calls that were pretty rude, but you know yep. That’s nice. I,

Wilson:
But I remember, well, he kinda set us up in that way too. Troy did, in that, like he would come in during his trial on Fridays. Yes. I felt only. So that the answer is Troy Kelly working would be yes. Yes. Not that he was actually no conducting office

Jutte:
Business. He didn’t actually do anything. If anything, he’d just be in the systems scoping and seeing what was out there that he, you know, could irritate us over. But

Jutte:
Yeah, he didn’t actually do anything productive, but I think that just the visual of that, the, you know, how that played out. I, I really tried to get him to not take pay during that time, but he wouldn’t which is an indicator he needed the money and, and I get that. I, I get that, but mm-hmm , but again, my role is to protect the office, my oral, to keep the office running. Right. And to be ethical and honest, and that didn’t match with what his goals were. So yeah, he did take his pay and it, it did get some press, but not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. But I did worry about it quite a bit. Because you know, any, any black mark he would bring to the office just was not deserved by the office. So, you

Wilson:
Know, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, at this point, really, like not only did, were his, his crimes commit, his commit crimes were committed before he took office, but then he had been out of the office and not making decisions there for some time in me in a mean any kind of meaningful way. So it really didn’t deserve to reflect on the office. But then we get this bizarre, the, you know, the jury goes to deliberations for day one day, two day three. I think it was like, it really was like four or five days, maybe six. Yeah. I don’t deliberations.

Jutte:
How long? I just remember that you went on and on. Yeah.

Wilson:
Yeah, yeah. And then this is like, okay, they can’t do it. They’re not gonna come to anything. So he was acquitted of one charge out of like 14 and the, the other 13 are hanging out there and and he’s gonna, and he’s back the next day. So talk about that sort of like 24 hour cycle between like, oh, it looks like they’re not gonna get a resolution to like now. And then when I say he’s back, I think now he’s like, I’m back. And in his mind he had been acquit of everything in

Jutte:
My, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. That’s how he would see it. That was really, really interesting. And I hope that I’m not saying something that governor Insley would be upset about, but postman David postman and I were in touch on a regular basis. And and his attorney at the time, who is now the us attorney just LA brown, his last name was brown mm-hmm anyway, we were in touch every single day that the jury was in deliberations. The governor already had the, my swearing in documents ready.

Wilson:
Oh, wow.

Jutte:
Mm-Hmm everything was set up. We were keeping each other in the loop constantly. And all of a sudden I get a phone call that says he was just acquitted. He was it. We, no, the jury just came back. He, it was a hung jury. Right. And all of us were just stunned, you know, out of 17 or 18 charges that there wouldn’t have been one felony, which would’ve right. Once he was convicted of a felony, he automatically would be out of office that that would remove him. So the governor was totally ready to make this a done deal and right. I, I mean, that was just

Wilson:
As well, he, you know, a good choice and would be pragmatic to do so. Like, you want to be like, cut this off. Be like, now it’s over, but no. Right.

Jutte:
Yeah. So and then, like you said, then the next day he princes in like king or what, I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s like, and it was uncomfortable. I mean, it got to the point and, and again, he still was not he wasn’t running the office on a daily basis, but at that point he felt empowered to sometimes just randomly show up at executive team meetings. And there would be certain things that we really didn’t want to talk about in front of him cuz we knew he had a different opinion than we did. And we knew what was right for the office and we didn’t wanna fight about it. And I mean, it, it, it became uncomfortable and he, you know, he would throw a wrench into something that we were working on. Yeah, it, it, he had a different attitude when he came back that, but he still wanted me to run the office at that point, which was bizarre.

Wilson:
Yeah.

Jutte:
And you started to see, or those of us who interacted with him frequently more frequently than we probably wanted to you began to see that his mental health was taking a toll. Mm-Hmm that he was N not as rational as he used to be. It was hard to talk, talk to him about in most anything. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Wilson:
He, he had a, so my, my last bit there, he, at first, when he came back, cause he didn’t wanna be impeached. He would hang out at the insurance building near the capital and sort of a symbolic I’m in the office way. And then everyone skid and there was very few people who would stay up there with him, except for like me sometimes and the woman who had to answer phones for, you know, when you call the state auditor’s office and people just kept their distance. Then he gets the hung jury and he starts showing up in the business office where most of the auditors are, you have state agency auditors, local team auditors, the financial people for the agency itself, the HR department, all these people in the hub of activity. And he starts showing up there, I think in part, because he was trying to hide from the press. Yes. At the Capitol, he was trying to avoid being seen well and

Jutte:
Well, and that office was secure. You couldn’t, oh, you couldn’t walk into that office without a key card or the receptionist letting you in. So he knew that the press couldn’t get to him.

Wilson:
Right. Absolutely. He was kind of hidden away and he took this little, like literally this office, like down to like the end of a hall,

Jutte:
No

Wilson:
Window. And I remember, yeah, no window. People would like peek down the hall. I remember this. And like, look to see if the light on was in there. Right. They didn’t

Jutte:
Wanna go down there and then go the other way around so that they didn’t have to go by his door. They

Wilson:
Were physically avoiding him. Yes. Yes. And then, you know, but it didn’t take long for him to give me the hi ho Thomas Shapley the hi Doug Cochran, the hi ho. And that was very painful. But I remember that we all three of us talk like, well, we have to talk publicly about this. Cuz we felt like there were more next. Like he was just going to go through the office. And so we felt like we had to like make a big stink out of it and talk to the press when maybe you normally wouldn’t because we wanted him to know that this was not, that this was newsworthy that people outside of his own brain would say that this is untoward. And that’s what we could do. But as you were hinting, you know, like he was maybe gonna try and get rid of you. He was talk, talk about like how you checked that sort of like the, the attempt to sort of behead the whole office, if you will, or at least the executive team.

Jutte:
Well, it, yeah, it was really aimed at people that he felt should have been defending him during his trial. He had completely, this is why I wanted to bring up that we had this agreement up front and he had totally forgotten that agreement. And even when I tried to remind him of that agreement, he would just brush it off and no, I should have been defend, you know? And, and so was, you know,

Wilson:
Was picking up the phone and been like, Hey no, Troy, Kelly’s a great guy. Yeah. That’s what he started

Jutte:
Thinking. Yeah. He couldn’t possibly have done this. He’s just way too nice. But so it was the two communication guys, you and Thomas and he, and Doug had not been getting along for a while. And of course Doug was not go, Doug was taking some of the press calls and he was not gonna defend him. And then me. And so he fired the three of you. And by the way, I, this was, he waited until I was on vacation. He wouldn’t do this right with me sitting there in the building with him. Mm-Hmm because he knew that the first one who got fired, would’ve gone straight to me and I’d have been in there. But he was informed that if his intent was to fire me, when I came back from vacation, that they were pretty sure the governor would ask the attorney general to put an observer. And he did not realize that the governor had that authority. And so he stopped short of firing me. But when I came back from vacation, he promptly informed me. He never wanted to see me again. I could continue to run the office. But when he came to the sunset building, he did not want me in the sunset building. He wow. Yeah. And we pretty much didn’t see each other, but, and an occasional time where we accidentally passed in the hallway or something, which was mm-hmm me, but

Wilson:
yeah. You didn’t miss him.

Jutte:
Yeah. But, but it was really weird because, you know, he would be in the computer systems, looking at decisions we’d made or whatever. I mean, we were interesting, we were constantly trying to continue to run the office professionally without him interfering in it. Yeah.

Wilson:
So that’s tough to do. Yeah.

Jutte:
Our goal at that point in time was just to get to the end of the term. Sure. And things functioning. So

Wilson:
Sorry. Get my little visitor here, came by to steal my water. Oh, he’s intrigued by your story, Dan. He also in shock.

Jutte:
When I got my vacation. He not only informed me didn’t want to see me anymore, but then I, I, well, of course, while I’m on vacation, I’m on the phone, you know, first Doug calls me and I mean, you know, it’s just, and then we had other exempt people calling and my next, I don’t know, I didn’t know he was gonna do the other ones. I mean in fact my daughter and son-in-law will tell you that that vacation was awful. So when I got,

Wilson:
Yeah,

Jutte:
Kinda

Wilson:
Hard to focus, right? Yeah. On your vacation. When

Jutte:
The HR person approached me and asked me if I just wouldn’t take vacation again, till until the term was over. And so I, I did take a few long weekends, but we just didn’t let him know, but I didn’t take another vacation.

Wilson:
So did just so you could keep your eyes on just so he

Jutte:
Would go, I was there because it was pretty clear that if I was there, he wouldn’t do it. I, I don’t know why I intimidated him that much, but evidently I did.

Wilson:
Well, you’re intimidating.

Jutte:
So while I was gonna, I mean, I, if I kept him from firing more good people that’s what I was gonna do. So so

Wilson:
I think that’s the end of act two. I mean like kind of, or what do you wanna add

Jutte:
There? Well, I just wanted to add that, you know, I mean, Tom has had already given his notice to retire, so he retired a little bit earlier. Doug, Doug landed on his feet, you know? I mean, he, he just went ahead and retired. He could, and he probably wasn’t planning on doing it that quickly, but you know, oh, well, but you were the one that really, it, this was not fair too. You were doing your job, you were defending the office, you were answering on behalf of the office. You were, you were doing an excellent job. And every one of us on the executive team, including the other two got fired, just wanted to see you land on your feet because it was totally wrong. You had a young family, you’d just been, I mean, yeah.

Wilson:
Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you. And, you know, it’s all worked out and we, we can, we won’t flash forward to that, I guess, to the complete end, but, you know, what’s, that was a strange moment for me personally, that yes, we Jessica and I were engaged. We, you know, we were mid getting remarried. But we ended up getting married that summer anyway. And , you know, it was strange because here were all these folks from the work family, right? Like lots of our friends from Sao and, you know, it was great. It felt good. And it was a great time to get married and, and move on, but it was also this very strange thing. And I remember talking to, I mean, the, we had John from the office do the officiating , you know, so like the guy that married us, literally reading the band was from the office.

Wilson:
But then they, you know, we’d hear these terrible stories of the awkwardness right now. You know, like there, there was supposed to be the summer barbecue, which was an Sao tradition and folks in the Olympia area anyway, would go to like the parking lot and barbecue, hot dogs for a day in the summer and talk, build team rod about, I just about combined team spirit and comradery to team lottery, but that’s what they would build. But, you know, they described to me this scene, which you were probably there for where they were handing out like, you know, five years with the office and good job on this audit kind of awards. But there was literally like this bubble around Troy, cuz he tried to go there. And so, but nobody wanted to get literally within like 10 feet of him, you know, like there was like this kind of chill and so I can , you know, it just, it lets people, I hope people understand that, like it was otherwise a very tight knit office. Yes. And great spirit. But there was this kind of weirdness started out at weirdness and then just ended up straight at disdain. Like I didn’t realize that he just told you, I don’t want, literally don’t wanna see you. Yeah. Like, I mean, come on.

Jutte:
Yeah. Well that’s the first time I’ve ever told that publicly. I mean the executive team knew it, but publicly wow. You know, that was one of those things that I said, you know, the staff does not need to know this, that we can keep the office running smoothly. They don’t need to know this. This is the stress that they don’t need. So this stays with us and it did

Wilson:
Got it. Well, tell me about that now. I, okay. I’m gonna skip forward. Cause I, you know, , there’s too much to go into, but so, but things generally, you just have to like I think of this as like landing the plane without the engines. Right. He’s back, he kind of feels like he can do things, but you don’t want him to do things. He’s not innocent even though he feels innocent. And so you have to sort of like just be there and help the, help him get to the end of the term, help the office survive till the end of the term he’s out in January of 2017. It’s like, you know, your elect, the election was in November, 2016. New auditor takes office in January, 2017. That’s pat McCarthy who later, you know, let’s finish that story, hires me back later.

Wilson:
Thank you pat. She’s great. Wonderful. and I, you know, just, she really is like a good person and that’s who you wanna work for. Yeah. but you had to kind of bring that in. And we talked about this a little bit when we were thinking about doing the podcast, this was a, like, people were throwing flowers at you at the end of this because you had to put up with it and keep things going and tell me first of all, I mean you, what was it like to kind of do that kind of weird sort of like I’m gonna try and retire again now under completely different circumstances

Jutte:
Three times, three

Wilson:
Times three. Yes

Jutte:
Well I just have to say it, it was the strangest way to enter, to end a career. What I think was a stellar career, actually the offers gave me great opportunities to, you know, to become expert in governmental accounting and, and auditing and speak nationally and participate with national organizations as well as all the local government organizations in the state. It you know, right up till this all started. And I, I think virtually every one of ’em gave me some, I have a whole box of awards out there in the garage that last, you know, six months or something

Wilson:
Like these are professional organizations too, like are saying, wow, you really, you know, thank

Jutte:
You for this together. One, some of them gave me lifetime memberships to their organization and you know, I got plaques and just all kinds of things that but it really wasn’t just me. It was the whole executive team. And I can’t say enough for our staff, our staff, you know, this could have been very disruptive and they got up every morning and went to an audit site. And every time they went to a new audit site after May 4th they would have to, you know, answer questions and, and keep it professional and keep moving forward. And you know, people who’ve never worked in our office, don’t understand it, what a tight budget they have to conduct in some cases, a three year audit. So to take the time to calmly answer people’s questions and give them reassurance was an impact to them, but they did it. And every time I got an award, I would just praise the staff because they did it. I didn’t do it. They did it.

Wilson:
Well, but you know, you did something, do you have, I totally agree everybody. That’s part of what makes you great. , you know, I absolutely appreciate the truth of what you’re saying. But would you, do you have looking back on any advice for leaders who are, you know, what, what do you do when the boss gets indicted? Jan, what’s your,

Jutte:
I don’t, I don’t any leader. I don’t care if the boss just got indicted or you just worked your way up and you’re the leader, be honest, be open, be ethical, and then it’s all gonna be okay, do your job, whatever your expertise is, do your job, know your job, be honest, be open, be ethical. And the rest of it takes care. It takes care of itself. You

Wilson:
Got nothing. It sounds remarkably simple, but you

Jutte:
Say it does. And, and, and once you kind of get in the habit of it, you don’t even think about the alternative. Why would I hide this? This is what happened. And if I hide it and they find it, it’s gonna be worse than if I just say we made a mistake. I mean, mm-hmm, , mm-hmm, why not be open. People are forgiving, but if you hide it and if you’re, I mean, I just have no patience with somebody who’s not ethical, but right.

Wilson:
It’s true. But it’s, it’s amazing how if you are, are working long enough or alive long enough, like how frequently those three rules are violated Jan, like and Troy Kelly was not the first, there are plenty it’s astounding to me. How frequently, you know, I guess our fraud audits are a great example. Like how often people are not open, they are not ethical.

Jutte:
The whole need to have a state auditor’s office or CPA audit firms is because people don’t follow those three things. And in government being open is just non-negotiable. I mean, that’s, it’s what you signed up for. So don’t complain about it. Don’t hide it. Don’t whatever, that’s what you signed up for that living in the United States of America. If you’re in, in government, you signed up to be open.

Wilson:
Absolutely. You know, this is how democracy works is that we, the people have the power and we delegate that power to elected officials, to government agencies, and we expect that job to be done. And we expect to be able to see for ourselves that it was done and to have someone check and see that it was done and that the money went were supposed to. And I totally agree with you that there’s, there should be no patience whatsoever for any kind of ation or dishonesty in government. I mean, that’s part of, you know, you’re talking about a culture and I think that’s, you know, kind of what SAOs about is maintaining that culture of honest brokerage in government, you know?

Jutte:
Yes.

Wilson:
Well, what are you doing now? Jan?

Jutte:
Well, finally enjoying the grandkids. I was traveling a lot till the pandemic hit, but now I’m starting back up again, just got back from six days in Victoria and leaving June 1st for three weeks in Montana and enjoying life enjoying.

Wilson:
Yeah. Right. How’s that transition? I mean, you talk about like, you know, like kind of that strange, like farewell where you had managed through the worst but people recognized it, you know, do you did that, like what your appetite for sticking around doesn’t seem like, it seems like you were like, no, now I’m going back to plan a, which was retired.

Jutte:
The only time I thought maybe I should have run for office was during a pandemic. I’m, I’m an extrovert. I’m single mm-hmm and I was locked down. I didn’t like it. Right. but I mean, the flip side of that is, you know, financially I wasn’t impacted, I have a nice home. I mean, I, I had a lot of things going for me, so I, I really can’t whine too much, but I will . but but no, I, I miss the people and prior to the pandemic, I went back and saw the people a lot. I had was having lunch with pat every, you know, three, four months or something after the office. And so I was still in touch and got to see a lot of the people, which I really did miss them. But and, and I’ll honestly say going from working to retirement was the hardest adjustment I’ me.

Jutte:
It really was much harder than you know, adjusting to being acting, state auditor, or adjusting to the mini twists and turns that Troy had. You know, I, I, I loved what I did. I loved getting up every morning and going there mm-hmm I just knew that it was time. And in part I wanted to have some time with my grandchildren before they were in school, full time because of the extra 21 months, I missed my granddaughter. She was into school full time, but my grandson, I got some time with before he was in school. But yeah, it, it definitely took me a while to adjust to this new not quite so driven but yeah, it’s, it’s good.

Wilson:
Good, good. Well, I am really glad to catch up with you. I feel like we just breeze through some crazy times in record time. People, this is like a true statement. People will never know.

Jutte:
No,

Wilson:
You will never know how truly bizarre that all was. And like you said, the numerous, you could probably just write a book based on the attorney General’s opinion you had to get

Jutte:
. Yeah.

Wilson:
You know, and the strange, the strangeness of it, but I’m glad we got to talk because and I’m glad that you’re doing well, because it was, I feel like probably not taken as seriously as it should have been. I feel like there’s a little bit of a leaning on, maybe we could close on this. There’s a leaning on this culture. We have of good government that, oh, well, we’re gonna get rid of them. The, the, the wheels of justice will turn and it’s all gonna be okay. And then it kind of was because good people stepped up. But we need to remember that’s because there were good people and that they knew what good was and they stepped up and not just because there’s always somebody ready to do that. And I think that we have seen, and I don’t wanna get too political here, but there have been instances where there, you know, the wheels of democracy were in question where there maybe somebody good wasn’t gonna step up or the things weren’t gonna follow the rules and they’re not there to be taken lightly.

Jutte:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, you know our country rules in a way that is kind of a, a delicate balance. And I think we, as citizens need to stay in touch with what’s happening. I get a little frustrated with some of my friends who pay huge attention to what’s happening at the federal level, but they don’t even vote for school board or city council or county council, or and it’s important to know what’s going on locally, as well as those higher levels. We have the power if we want to stay educated enough to wield that power. And it’s discouraging when, when we don’t and it, and it puts our governance at risk.

Wilson:
Well put well put, which is why we should all vote for Jan Judy, best retiree.

Jutte:
Oh,

Wilson:
Well, thank you, Jan. I really appreciated catching up with you.

Jutte:
Yeah, this was, this was great.

Wilson:
We’ll stay in touch, right? Yes. Maybe we’ll rehash times twice over .

Jutte:
Yeah. Maybe this summer we could meet at a park and the kids could play, cuz I haven’t seen the kids in forever.

Wilson:
That would be great. Yeah. And you can yeah, they they’ve changed

Jutte:
A little bit. Yeah. I’ll bet.