Oklahoma State Auditor & Inspector
Cindy Byrd, CPA, is Oklahoma’s 13 th State Auditor & Inspector. She is the first woman elected to serve as the taxpayers’ watchdog.
A Certified Public Accountant with over 25 years of government auditing experience, Cindy has conducted audits at every level of government and identified hundreds of millions in misappropriated and wasted public funds. Many of her audits have garnered national attention and led to critical legislative reforms at the state level.
In 2023, during her second term as State Auditor and Inspector, Cindy received the Dr. Tom Coburn Transparency in Government Award, of which she is very proud.
By the end of her second term, Cindy will have published more than 3000 audits, including the following:
A first of its kind audit of Medicaid eligibility demonstrating that Oklahoma paid more than $1.6 Billion to Medicaid recipients, whose income had never been verified, and nearly $30 Million to recipients who did not qualify for Medicaid (2019 Oklahoma Health Care Authority)
The EPIC Charter Schools Audit, which uncovered the largest misappropriation of taxpayer dollars in the state’s history and received the 2022 Excellence in Accountability Award for a Forensic Audit by the National State Auditor’s Association (2020 EPIC Charter Schools)
An audit of federal Covid relief showing that $1.8 Million, set aside for school supplies, was used for TVs, grills, deep fryers and smokers and that some families inappropriately received special access to $6.5 Million reserved for tuition assistance (FY2021 Federal Single Audit)
An audit of Emergency Rental Assistance demonstrating that more than $9.2 Million was unlawfully diverted to Afghan refugee relocation efforts in Oklahoma (FY2021-FY2023 Federal Single Audit)
An audit of personal protective equipment, purchased during the pandemic, establishing that the state paid for more than $5 Million worth of equipment that it never received (2022 Oklahoma State Department of Health)
An audit of unemployment claims that led to the discovery of a major conflict of interest involving a former director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, who approved $8.5 Million in payments to a technology company without disclosing that her husband served as the company’s vice-president (FY2022 Federal Single Audit)
An audit of federal funds and contracting procedures that led to the discovery that the state had awarded hundreds of millions of federal dollars to vendors whose contracts had not been subject to competitive bidding requirements (FY2022 Federal Single Audit)
More than $50 Million in questioned federal costs associated with an audit of various childcare programs in Oklahoma; administrators at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) disbursed funds without any guardrails and inappropriately awarded the single largest distribution ($2 Million) to a company co-owned by the husband of the former Director of Child Care Services at OKDHS (FY2023 Federal Single Audit)
An audit of Tulsa Public Schools showing that the district spent more than $35 Million on DEI-related initiatives and an administrator committed more than $824,000 in wire fraud (2025 Tulsa Public Schools)
This office checks how a state or local government spends public money. Auditors review agencies and programs, look for waste, fraud, and mistakes, and publish what they find. In some places the office, often called the Comptroller or Controller, also keeps the government's books and approves its payments.