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UW’s
$1.3 million "day of reflection"
Don't spend millions for
billionaires The new plant will end a three-year legal battle between Willows Run and the state Department of Ecology, which claimed the golf course's use of water was lowering the nearby Sammamish River. The golf course will pay about $60,000 for the 50 million gallons of water it uses each season—roughly half the cost of fresh water. The county claims the 5.5 acre demonstration facility will convert sewage into irrigation water, saving salmon and providing training for new technology. But King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert calls the plant "a very unnecessary boondoggle." She says a test facility could be built much cheaper somewhere else, and points out that "Paul Allen can afford to buy his water from anywhere he wants to, including Saudi Arabia if he chose. We will never recoup the money. Never."
Get
DSHS off the phone According to the Department's Information Systems Services Division, the average monthly cost for each of the 322 "T-1 readyline" numbers is $67.53. The average monthly cost for each of the 78 additional "dedicated lines" is $95.56. Many of the toll-free lines ring at local offices that serve only a local area, and some are duplicates or triplicates, such as the three different toll-free numbers that ring into the Tacoma office for the Division of Children and Family Services. While many of these services may be helpful, are they essential for government? Does one government agency really need to operate over 400 different hotlines at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year? 3/28/03: Looks like DSHS may have dialed another wrong number. [Started just this past December] DSHS' Centralized Intake Hotline for child-abuse complaints has come under fierce criticism. It seems those calling have been disconnected or kept on hold for hours, leading critics to claim the hotline is endangering children. DSHS is reviewing its options, including possible dismantling of the hotline.
Don't make ratepayers fund
political consultants Last year, City Light spent $50,000 to have consultants coordinate focus groups and find out what people think of the utility's performance, as well as the credibility of local politicians, media publications, and community organizations. City Councilman Jim Compton questioned City Light's motives for the consulting: "It looks overtly political to me," he said in a Seattle Times interview. "How did that $50,000 really benefit the ratepayers?"
Spend
less on Hummers and skateboard guys The idea, according to KING 5 News, was for two cool young guys to drive up to a school in the Hummer (which has four TVs, a lounge set-up, and a 5,000-watt sound system), talk with students for ten minutes about the evils of smoking tobacco, and give away free prizes like a Sony Playstation and an X-box. After a ten-minute speech, students got to spend twenty minutes playing video games. The program was run by a Florida company. When asked about the high cost, Terry Reid of Washington's Department of Health replied: "There are people in the business of making a profit off of this, as there are in every kind of business." When asked to compare the Hummer Tour with the state's "Teens Against Tobacco Use" (TATU) program, which costs $70,000 less and puts hundreds of high-school volunteers to work, Reid said: "There are going to be some kids who that does not faze, because often times the TATU kids look like good kids, and the Hummer guys look like skateboard guys." Was it really a good investment of $369,000 to rent a Hummer and two "skateboard guys" to go around the state giving short speeches and setting up video games? Whoa, dude!
State
auditor finds more waste • $952,105 in fraud uncovered. • The state overpaid claimants and service providers by about $1.2 million, in addition to $1.9 million in questionable payments. • In 50% of the cases reviewed, DSHS did not investigate alerts sent by the Social Security Administration regarding invalid SS numbers or deceased recipients. • DSHS staff reported they routinely delete as many as 2,000 SSA alerts each month without investigation. • At least $725,774 paid by the Department of Labor & Industries in workers' compensation to ineligible recipients, including $92,426 paid to incarcerated individuals and $387,700 paid to deceased individuals. • The Employment Securities Division is not complying with eligibility requirements for unemployment insurance. • The Department of Labor & Industries is unable to account for more than $4.7 million in employer industrial insurance premium payments, which were recorded as received but never deposited. • The Ferry System failed its fifteenth audit in a row. • Ferries lack adequate internal controls over travel payments. Two Chief Engineers may have been paid at least $100,000 more than allowed. • DSHS still does not have sufficient internal controls over drugs in Western State Hospital pharmacies.
Be
accountable with Developmental Disabilities benefits The Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) is managed by the state's Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Nearly 32,000 individuals are in the program, many of whom do meet the eligibility requirements. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) also pointed out that as a result of the inflated numbers due to ineligible recipients, the Department has hired more staff than are necessary to meet the true need for services. It isn't just taxpayers who suffer as a result. When the truly needy in our state must compete with individuals who are not, service availability and quality is reduced. CMS also warned that "Non-compliance of this nature could jeopardize future federal funding of the state's Medicaid program."
Contact Linda Rolfe, Director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities (360.902.8484) and ask her what is being done to ensure recipients of benefits are eligible.
Spend a little less on fish A recent report published by the Congressional General Accounting Office states, "There is little conclusive evidence to quantify the extent of [the effect of recovery actions] on returning fish populations." In December 2002, Governor Locke's Salmon Monitoring Oversight Committee warned, "We risk losing Congressional and legislative funding for salmon recovery if benefits cannot be demonstrated." You mean people want proof their money is being spent effectively? Sounds fishy (to some state officials, at least).
Don't forget who pays public
salaries in Tacoma City officials explain the disparity by saying the level of skill required for most city jobs is much higher than many positions in the private sector. The City Council plans to consider raises ranging from 5 to 22 percent for some nonunion city employees this week. Meanwhile, the city recently announced cuts in many basic services and increases in various fees and taxes. Tacoma's five utilities are also raising rates. Perhaps that's because the Public Utilities Director makes $171,308 a year and the Power Superintendent makes $159,120. Click here for a complete list of Tacoma employee salaries and positions.
Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma News Tribune: City employee wages jump 6.4 percent
Sell the private jet As governor, Lowry tried to sell the jet in 1993. Indeed, a study done by the State Patrol several years ago shows that selling the jet could save $250,000 a year for taxpayers. But lawmakers pulled the plug on the deal and returned the jet to the Patrol. While Patrol officials say the jet is cost-effective because it can fly faster (thereby saving money on long-distance trips), records show the jet is almost always used for short, in-state flights. Further, maintaining the jet costs $468 per maintenance hour—$119 an hour more than the Turbo Props. And now state officials want to give the jet a $1 million upgrade. Patrol officials have also claimed they need the jet to transport dangerous criminals . . . the kind citizens wouldn't want to sit next to on a commercial flight. Frankly, unless they're worried such criminals won't be comfortable in anything less than a Beechjet with air-conditioning, it would be a better deal for taxpayers to use one of the Turbo Props, or maybe even a plain old patrol car. "I think their priorities are goofed up," said Bob Williams in a recent KING 5 TV interview. "Public health and safety are the priority, not refurbishing a jet aircraft for the State Patrol."
KING
5: A high-flying extravagance for Washington State?
Reform state's retire-rehire
law The state's "retire-rehire" law was written to coax teachers and other skilled employees out of retirement or keep them from leaving for private sector jobs. But some state employees, like Cooper, are using it to give themselves substantial pay raises even when they have no intention of retiring. State law was changed two years ago at the request of Governor Locke and school Superintendent Terry Bergeson. The law allows state employees to work up to 1,500 hours each year while collecting pension payments. Dennis Cooper never cleaned out his desk when he "retired." His position was never advertised as vacant. Shortly after he came back to work, his second-in-command, Gary Reid, also "retired" for a month, and thus added pension payments to his more than $8,100 monthly salary.
Editorial: Curb
the state's retire-rehire fiasco Legislator
wants to retool retire-rehire law for public workers to avoid misuse
"Miscommunication"
means $7.2 million deficit in Shoreline schools Shoreline schools spokeswoman Marjorie Ledell explained the problem in a November Seattle PI article: "It was discovered that there were more expenditures that would need to be made than were planned on." The "forgotten" expenses—including $5.3 million in salary supplements and $1.9 million allocated for class size reduction—account for 10 percent of the district's 2002-03 budget. To address the deficit, school officials are cutting spending for materials and supplies like paper, standardized tests, computer parts, postage, publications, vehicle and copier repair. They're also turning off lights in empty rooms and putting heaters on timers to save energy costs. This isn't the first time the district has come up short. In 2000-01 officials borrowed $1.5 million from a school construction fund to meet an operations shortfall.
Tacoma City Council members
leave taxpayers in the dark Meanwhile, they approved $268,750 in new public art grants on January 20 through the Tacoma Arts Commission, which has a $1,661,135 budget for the 2001-03 biennium. The city has also donated $10 million in "in kind" contributions to the Harold E. LeMay car museum, and millions more to the "Bridge of Glass" connecting to the Chihuly Museum of Glass downtown. The willingness of council members to leave taxpaying citizens in the dark while they pour more money into public art projects is illuminating: they'd rather exploit citizens than represent them.
Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma
Illegal
aliens on welfare The DSHS estimates that this included almost 23,000 people who could not document their legal residency. However, the department is determined to tell non-citizen pregnant women how to get free medical coverage anyway, now through the Basic Health Plan (BHP). The DSHS sent a letter to over 16,000 clients in 20 different languages explaining the transition procedure. The sad part is that there actually is a transition procedure. That's because our state legislators expanded membership in the BHP to help those who were losing coverage. In essence, they traded one form of welfare for another. In sports, coaches and managers get fired for making bad trades all the time. Maybe we should hold our state legislators to the same standard. 3/27/03: U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is requesting enforcement of provisions in the landmark 1996 Federal Welfare Reform law requiring that states seek repayment from sponsors of LEGAL aliens receiving public benefits. When we asked Washington's DSHS if they were enforcing this provision, they said no because "there is ambiguity in the law about several issues related to reimbursement." Rep. Tancredo doesn't see anything ambiguous about it.
Basic Health (without a)
Plan To its credit, the HCA dropped any of the 16,000 members who didn't respond. And the agency has already rearranged its staff and priorities to better account for our money. Plans are in place to make an annual eligibility review for each subscriber. But that's little consolation to over 4,000 people already on the BHP waiting list. People with genuine needs are going without health insurance while others who are more well-off steal their benefits. And our money. State Auditor Brian Sonntag believes that "wide-scale use of performance measures and performance audits will help build citizen trust and confidence in their government." They might even prevent a few mistakes in the process. After reviewing Basic Health, we couldn't think of a better plan.
Caretaker on the take Twelve monthly checks in nine months? A investigation by the State Auditor's Office found that nearly $30,000 in extra checks were paid to the former caretaker between 1998 and 2001. According to the audit repot: "The lack of monitoring at the District level and a lack of oversight by the County enabled the former caretaker to take unauthorized vouchers to the County for processing and payment." Our county officials need to keep a closer eye on caretakers and take better care of our money.
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