Four weeks after he said, "No" to the state auditor's office writing initiative petition fiscal notes, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem on Wednesday made it a final "no."
And State Auditor Tom Schweich's office plans to appeal the decision.
As he wrote first on Feb. 28, Beetem again said this week that Missouri's Constitution limits the auditor's work: "No duty shall be imposed on [the state auditor] by law which is not related to the supervising and auditing of the receipt and expenditure of public funds."
At a March 13 hearing, Darrell Moore - the former Greene County prosecutor who now serves as Schweich's in-house counsel - told Beetem the judge's Feb. 28 ruling took "a restricted view of what an audit is, that it's only a review of monies received and spent, and not a look at the past, present and future of monies received and spent."