Today’s lead Editorial from the Orange County Register
Are we borrowing trouble again?
Audit finds millions misspent from parks, water and wildlife bonds passed in 2000 and 2002.
An examination of annual state audits of four bonds passed in 2000 and 2002 shows "questionable spending on public relations, lobbying and even yoga classes."
The San Jose Mercury News, in stories published on Tuesday, outlined that some groups receiving bond money "failed to properly document expenses, claimed unallowable costs and went over budget because of inconsistent monitoring by state agencies."
California voters should keep such audits in mind as they consider five bond measures on the November ballot: Propositions 1B (transportation), 1C (housing), 1D (schools), 1E (levees) and 84 (water quality and parks).
The Mercury News studied audits from the California Department of Finance of four bonds for parks, water and wildlife.
Bond money must be repaid from the state general fund – which is currently running a $4 billion structural deficit, all of which is the taxpayers’ obligation. And because bonds come with interest repaid over 20 to 30 years, in recent years the effective cost of a bond actually is double the amount spent.
Here are some of the misuses of tax money from the bonds that the Mercury News reported; it noted that some of the money has been paid back because of the audits:
• The state Coastal Conservancy blew $38,000 for "questionable" purposes, such as $29,000 for lobbying the federal government, $5,000 for employee transit subsidies and $3,500 for "employee yoga and weight-loss programs."
• The Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy received nearly $100 million of bond money, some of it going to executive director Joe Edmiston’s membership at an airport "Red Carpet Club," his wife’s travel and "$577 for room service."
• Also at the mountain conservancy, overhead costs ran 350 times more than at other agencies. That’s 350, not 3.5 times. "[M]illions were spent on questionable projects such as emergency-preparedness kits, operating shuttle buses to run between parks, questionable legal fees and public relations."
The agencies have replied, the paper reported, that the misspending found in the audits is a small fraction of the $10 billion in spending from the bonds. But this cavalier attitude toward the taxpayers’ money is at the heart of the problem of government waste and deficits. And the audits well could have revealed only the tip of an iceberg of waste.
Private businesses must account to shareholders and public investors as to how their money is spent. When a private businesses fails to do so, an Enron meltdown can occur. But with government, there is no bottom line, miscreant officials seldom are held to account and waste is paid for with tax increases.
We have written editorials opposing, on the merits, the five bonds on the November ballot. But the audits of the 2000 and 2002 bonds offer even more reasons.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:00 am
And let’s not forget the ‘money’ quote from the folks at Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that wasted all that cash: “I don’t know what the numbers are, and I don’t care what the numbers are, frankly. All I know is we are the most successful land acquisition agency in the state of California,” said Jerome C. Daniel, the conservancy’s chairman and a board member. “It bothers me to be questioned about the way we’re doing business, when what really matters is the end result.”