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COMMENTARY
 August 14, 2002 Contact: Marsha Richards, Communications Director A few too many hiccups in Liquor Board's accounting Remember when State Auditor Brian Sonntag discovered last February that the State Liquor Board couldn't account for $421 million in sales? That wasn't the end of the Liquor Board's little (hic) accounting problems. An audit report released today has uncovered $839,706.90 in unauthorized payments to a vendor who submitted false billing records to the Board. This vendor inflated delivery weights on 600 shipments by 5,000 pounds each, billed for 1,370 deliveries that were never made, and double-billed for 273 orders. How in the world did someone get away with such a massive fraud? Here's how. The Board does not have meaningful oversight measures for the taxpayer dollars it manages. Staff are not required to verify reported deliveries and weights prior to payment and the guilty vendor was not required to provide original copies of invoices. Furthermore, the Board staff member who reviewed the vendor's billings and personally delivered payments has a relationship with this vendor that creates a conflict of interest. Our state officials have a bad habit of retaining the people who oversee, contribute, or even solicit this kind of gross fraud and mismanagement. The Liquor Board is obviously in need of a serious house-cleaning. In this day and age, why is the state even in the liquor business at all? Selling liquor is not a core function of government. Further, it seems impossible that state officials are blind to the obvious conflict of interest in allowing the state to be both the regulator and distributor of liquor. Even British Columbia has recognized this fact and is moving to privatize its liquor sales. At the very least, Washington taxpayers have a right to expect—and
demand—that state officials will act swiftly to bring the wrongdoers
involved in this case to justice. Even then, it will be difficult to eliminate
the problem so long as the state has conflicting interests that expose it
to this kind of fraud.
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1 Part Honesty; 2 Parts Arrogance At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question: "Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?" - Rep. Jim McIntire (D - 46) Despite the arrogance of some state officials, Washington's constitution is clear: "All political power is inherent in the people..." |
