WARNING: Do not read this report just after eating.Each month, I could write reams solely on examples of wasteful government spending. Since April was income tax and property tax month, here are six examples (from hundreds available) of how your money is squandered by the El Paso County government:1. At the southwest corner of Vermijo and Tejon, next to the county building, there were about six private news racks for private publications. In strong winds, they have fallen over. The county decided to buy and bolt into the sidewalk a long metal news rack with about a dozen boxes in it. Cost: $4,500. Others are planned elsewhere. I asked at a board meeting why taxpayers were making this gift to private publishers, who were not even being charged rent for using a box. Why was the county also involved in assigning box spaces? Most boxes are still empty and unneeded. See Article XI, section 2 of the state Constitution, which I swore to uphold. It bars the county from making gifts with public funds to private firms. The rule of law? Who cares!2. Last year, the other four commissioners voted to spend $775,000 on a study and design for a “NEW NEW” jail addition. The original NEW jail addition was opened last spring and, if present trends continue, will be full in about two years. I noted that, since 1995, citizens voted against jail and sheriff’s office expansion FIVE times, by up to 83 percent, but the county adopted illegal debts to build the additions for the jail (AND courthouse). Anyway. Terry Harris, the $142,000-per year county administrator who orchestrated that heist, was rewarded by having the new courthouse named after him. We already pay $8 million yearly on those illegal debts. Voters certainly would reject yet another demand for higher taxes. The county pleads poverty and admits it can’t afford millions more in debt payments, even if imposed without voter approval. So why waste $775,000 on a design plan for construction that will not occur in the foreseeable future? (I decline the naming rights, and hope they aren’t saving a cell for me!)3. The Parks Department (I refuse to use its inflated title of “Department of Parks and Leisure Services”) wanted to issue 10,000 copies of a full-color, 20-page puff piece brochure on county parks. Instead of paying for it in their budget, they bought the paper and asked Information Technology to do the printing. The head of IT estimated his printing cost was about $1.45 per booklet, but later retracted that number. I contacted two private printers and received a firm printing bid, not counting paper on hand, of 32 cents a copy. That is 22 percent of the county’s cost estimate. The quality would be better on a press than using a copier, which also diverts county staff time and shortens the copier’s remaining life. It is shady accounting practice for park expenses to be shifted to IT. There is no budgetary discipline if costs can be hidden in other agencies, and appear to be “free.” No one at the county seems to understand that, except me. So far Parks has had about 2,500 copies printed. You may stop by my office on Mondays and Thursdays and get one, but I won’t use county postage to mail it to you.4. A similar cavalier approach to printing is other unnecessary printing of self-serving, full color brochures and fold-out cards. Each card panel (four to a side) is credit card-sized. This summary is titled County Facts. We also have a Budget-in-Brief booklet that spends money touting how good we are. Of course, it includes color photos of elected officials. My fellow commissioners love to distribute these tax-paid amenities. I am the only official who laments the irony/hypocrisy of spending tax money to show how much tax money we’re saving.5. Last fall, citizens requested stop signs at a minor intersection in Woodmoor, a rural neighborhood up north. Their hope was to slow speeders. The department of transportation studied the traffic flow and said there was not a serious speeding problem. A federal report showed that stop signs do not prevent speeding before and after the stop sign. I proposed the neighbors pay for those useless signs, not the taxpayers. That motion failed. The total cost for labor and material was $1,900. The county will now have to do follow-up studies to verify the installed signs were worthless! Even so, they will remain, since politicians lack the courage to remove a sign, in fear that someone might be hurt someday, and they would be blamed. This feel-good concession may have soothed irrational emotions before an election, but why have professional county engineers perform studies if we don’t follow their advice?6. Funeral costs for people on welfare are higher than for people not on welfare. When a corpse is not identified, it is cremated, with burial costs donated by private funeral homes. However, those who have lived off the taxpayers get “rewarded” with one final “send-off” at public expense, including a coffin and funeral service. We pay up to $1,500 for that gesture. If survivors want a greater cost, they can have a funeral at any expense, and the county will still pay the first $1,500. If survivors are rich, but don’t want to pay anything, taxpayers will still pay the whole $1,500. We should pay only for the cost of cremation, about $500, and then only if the deceased’s demanding relatives are also indigent.Fellow taxpayers, it is only natural that you should feel used and abused, because you are.********************Contact me at (719) 520-6412, by e-mail at DouglasBruce@elpasoco.com, or by writing me at 27 E. Vermijo Ave. Colo. Spgs. CO 80903. Audiotapes of all BOCC meetings, both simulcast and in archives, are available at www.elpasoco.com. Back issues of my monthly reports are at my Web site, www.DouglasBruce.com.
