IndyStar criticizes Braun over Dubois County sheriff audit fallout
Dubois County’s sheriff audit fallout now centers on county oversight, after more than $16,000 in commissary spending drew repayment and a new council review committee.
An IndyStar opinion piece criticized Gov. Mike Braun for fighting with the state police superintendent while Dubois County is still dealing with the fallout from the sheriff audit that put Tom Kleinhelter’s spending under a microscope. The deeper issue for local taxpayers is not the governor’s political clash, but how county money was handled, who is policing it now, and whether the sheriff’s office can rebuild confidence.
A special audit from the Indiana State Board of Accounts, released in August 2024, examined Dubois County Sheriff’s Office commissary spending from Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2023. It found more than $16,000 in expenditures that were not covered by Indiana code. Kleinhelter later repaid $16,774.71, but the repayment did not erase the broader questions raised by the audit about how commissary funds were used and how closely the books were being watched.
Reporting tied nearly $9,000 of the questioned spending to travel for Kleinhelter’s wife to law-enforcement conferences between 2021 and 2023, including a $7,375.92 trip to Dubai. More than $7,900 also went to employee gifts, including Visa prepaid cards and Blackstone grills. Those figures have fueled the sense in Dubois County that the issue was not a paperwork mistake alone, but a breakdown in financial controls inside a public office that handles taxpayer-supported operations.
The case later moved into a wider state controversy over how aggressively the investigation was pursued. Former Indiana State Police superintendent Doug Carter said in July 2025 that the Dubois County probe stalled after Braun took office. In August 2025, the state police investigation ended without criminal charges against Kleinhelter, and the detective who pursued the case was disciplined after the investigation ended. That sequence raised comparisons to the more aggressive handling of other sheriff corruption cases in Indiana, including the Clark County case involving Jamey Noel.
The latest political step came in April 2026, when Braun removed Kleinhelter from the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board after the board rejected a settlement that would have allowed him to remain certified through 2027. Back in Dubois County, officials have already moved toward a practical response, forming a committee to review future sheriff expenditures. For county residents, that is the part that matters most now: whether the next set of controls is strong enough to keep the same audit problems from returning.
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