Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball has apparently found something more important to audit than Kentucky’s exploding data-center gold rush.

Woke investments.

Ball’s office is paying $285,000 to Prinse LLC, doing business as Prospr Aligned, in a no-bid contract to conduct a special examination of Kentucky public pension investments involving so-called “restricted financial companies.”

Meanwhile, Kentucky is handing enormous advantages to data centers—tax breaks, infrastructure, electricity, water and secrecy—and Ball isn’t conducting the comprehensive data-center audit Kentucky taxpayers desperately need.

That’s an interesting choice of priorities.

Zeteo Followed the Money

Lauren Windsor at Zeteo recently exposed the national network surrounding Prospr and its CEO Derek Kreifels.  https://zeteo.com/p/kreifels-war-on-woke-cash-grab-alaska

Kreifels isn’t some independent auditor who wandered into Kentucky.

He co-founded and spent years running the State Financial Officers Foundation—SFOF, the national organization that helped turn opposition to ESG into a Republican political movement.

Allison Ball herself rose through SFOF.

Her former Kentucky Treasury aide O.J. Oleka now runs SFOF.

Kreifels left SFOF’s CEO job, created Prospr, and remains part of the SFOF network.

Then Allison Ball’s Auditor’s office hired Kreifels’s company.

For $285,000.

Apparently government spending isn’t always bad.

Prospr Isn’t Neutral About Data Centers

Here’s where this gets especially interesting.

Prospr has promoted AI data centers and high-performance computing as an economic-development opportunity.

It specifically points to abundant energy—including natural gas—as an advantage for powering them.

That fits neatly with SFOF’s longstanding campaign against climate-oriented investment restrictions, decarbonization pressure and restrictions on fossil fuels.

So Ball isn’t paying an ordinary accounting firm $285,000 to examine Kentucky pension investments.

She is paying a firm embedded in the very political network that has been fighting environmental and climate constraints while promoting the energy infrastructure needed for the AI boom.

Kentucky’s Auditor Could Be Auditing Data Centers

I recently pointed out something Kentucky politicians don’t seem anxious to advertise:

Kentucky already has a data-center watchdog.

Her name is Allison Ball.   https://commonsense401kproject.com/2026/08/23/kentucky-already-has-a-data-center-watchdog-with-subpoena-power-the-state-auditor-will-she-uncover-the-republican-corruption/

The Auditor has substantial authority to examine public money, obtain records and conduct special examinations.

Kentucky data-center projects raise obvious audit questions.

Who gets the tax breaks?

Who pays for the new electrical infrastructure?

Who pays for water and sewer expansion?

What happens to residential utility rates?

What promises were made behind NDAs?

Who owns and finances the projects?

What private-equity firms are involved?

What political relationships exist?

And are Kentucky taxpayers getting remotely close to what they’re giving away?

Ball could follow that money.

She apparently has other priorities.

Instead, Audit the Pensions for Being Too Woke

Kentucky’s official contract says Prospr is examining whether state retirement systems invested with “restricted financial companies.”

Think about the irony.

Kentucky pensions have billions invested through private equity, private credit, infrastructure and other Wall Street vehicles.   https://commonsense401kproject.com/2026/08/18/allison-balls-esg-shell-game-follow-the-money-from-kentucky-to-kkr-to-sfof/

Firms including KKR are deeply involved in financing the data-center and energy-infrastructure boom.

While Ball was Kentucky Treasurer and a Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System trustee, Teachers approved substantial additional commitments to KKR funds.

KKR had ESG policies.

That apparently wasn’t the problem.

Now Ball’s office is paying an anti-ESG consultant to examine whether Kentucky pension investments conflict with Kentucky’s interests.

Maybe somebody should examine whether Kentucky’s pensions are financing the data-center interests receiving favorable treatment from Kentucky government.

The Taxpayer Can Pay Twice

This is the part of the data-center story almost nobody wants to discuss.

Kentucky taxpayers can subsidize data centers through:

tax incentives, infrastructure, water, electricity and economic-development programs.

Then Kentucky public employees’ retirement money can be invested with Wall Street managers financing:

data centers, natural-gas generation, transmission, pipelines and digital infrastructure.

The Kentucky citizen can therefore be financing the same data-center boom from both pockets.

That’s exactly the kind of financial ecosystem an independent Auditor should investigate.

Instead Ball is spending $285,000 investigating whether the pension funds are sufficiently anti-ESG.

Follow the Money—In Both Directions

Ball says ESG can cause fiduciaries to put politics ahead of financial interests.

Fine.

Apply that principle consistently.

If environmental politics shouldn’t determine pension investments, neither should anti-environmental politics.

If BlackRock shouldn’t use pension money to advance climate policy, Kentucky politicians shouldn’t use pension money to advance their energy policy.

And if Allison Ball really wants to protect Kentucky taxpayers from politically connected Wall Street interests, there is an enormous audit waiting for her:

Audit Kentucky’s data-center gold rush.

Follow the tax breaks.

Follow the utility infrastructure.

Follow the water.

Follow the NDAs.

Follow the private-equity money.

Follow the pension money.

And follow the political relationships.

Kentucky Doesn’t Need a $285,000 Anti-Woke Audit

It needs an Auditor.

Zeteo has already started following the Prospr/SFOF money.

Kentucky taxpayers should now ask why their own Auditor isn’t following the much larger pile of money sitting right in front of her.

Allison Ball has the authority to investigate Kentucky’s data-center boom.

Instead she’s paying an SFOF-connected anti-ESG consultant $285,000 to investigate Kentucky pensions.

Maybe the problem isn’t that Kentucky doesn’t have a data-center watchdog.

Maybe the watchdog is looking the other way.