Column

Rooting out 'wasteful' government spending

By C.T. BOWEN, Editor of Editorials
Published October 18, 2007

There was no bang for this buck.

An error in favor of the taxpayer brought a refund check via the U.S. mail to reconcile the amount owed with what had been paid on the personal income tax returns. The check totaled $1. One buck. Eight bits. Not even enough for a good cup of coffee.

So we kept it. U.S. Treasury check number 2307 60861219, signed by the regional disbursing officer, still hangs via magnet to the refrigerator door in our domicile to serve as a symbol of nonsensical bureaucratic rule-following. It is the kind of government goofiness - spending more on processing and mail than the face value of the amount enclosed - that so frequently raises public ire.

(Someone, no doubt, will place blame on the humble taxpayers for this unnecessary waste by failing to provide permission to the government to make an electronic transfer into a private bank account. Forget it. Next thing you know someone will be making contact about claiming a share of lottery winnings from Nigeria.)

Recognizing that public ire, governing spending becomes a common campaign theme every two years: Cut the waste. Of course, you ask some would-be politician to pinpoint the exact waste he or she will eliminate and suddenly the particulars escape scrutiny.

Kind of like state legislators saying Pasco County's governments are doing a good job being stewards of the public purses, but they could do better. Really, where? These are the men and women who talk about tax reform by mentioning outrage at sales tax exemptions for ostrich feed and stadium luxury boxes. Then they return to Tallahassee, leave the tax breaks intact but tell local governments to cut their budgets because property taxes are too high.

Not everyone skips on the specifics. The late U.S. Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., gained notoriety for the Golden Fleece Awards he presented monthly to government agencies guilty of wasteful spending. The awards ended when Proxmire retired in 1989. However, seven years ago, Taxpayers for Common Sense, which bills itself as a non-partisan budget watchdog group, resurrected the Golden Fleece on the 25th anniversary of Proxmire's first award.

The Tampa Bay area can be proud. It won the rejuvenated fleece for sweetheart leases at Tampa International Airport in which land was leased to private interests for 41 cents a square foot even though the U.S. Postal Service paid $12 a square foot. The undervalued leases had the potential to cost the public as much as $500-million, according to one estimate.

The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't have much of a presence in Pasco County, so we started to look a little more locally for potential fleeces. Two west Pasco cities could gain the award just for developments in the past 10 days, though the dollars are not of the magnitude that Proxmire fingered,

In New Port Richey Tuesday evening, City Council considered but then declined to move speed bumps installed earlier along River Road at a cost of $10,000. The people who lived in the neighborhoods, including the Mayor Dan Tipton and Council member Rob Marlowe, aren't big fans of the bumps.

Neither are the majority of the people who answered a city survey. As one respondent wondered, why didn't the city ask for public input before installing the speed bumps? Well, it did. Sort of. Community meetings to devise a neighborhood plan focused on speeding along River Road. Still, some residents believe the design of the speed table - a portable piece of synthetic material - is flawed. Now, the city is looking at a redesign. In other words, it'll cost more.

Here's another cost worth pondering: Port Richey has spent $457,000, so far, on its planned dredging project, but it has yet to submit a completed application to dredge 29 canals. The city, however, has retained a law firm to figure out why its consultant hasn't met the council's expectations and is developing a plan B - finding another consultant. There has been no serious discussion of what should be part of plan A - how are they going to pay for it?

Cost estimates for the actual dredging are undetermined, but one estimate put the figure as high as $15-million or roughly $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the city. Makes that federal spending look downright economical.

One final nomination comes 20 miles from the coast. Our household nominates the U.S. Treasury Department. The aforementioned refund check became void after we failed to cash it within 365 days. No big deal until I tore open an official-looking envelope last month to discover the federal government had sent us a replacement - check number 2308 22538993 from the same disbursing officer for the same one dollar.

It, too, hangs on the refrigerator. We're starting a collection. Just consider it our part to help ease the federal government's deficit spending.

[Last modified October 17, 2007, 21:33:59]