At the start of last night's F & A meeting JP Diana Keller asked HG Foster to address the committee regarding the Legislative Audit Report. Foster proceeded by explaining that recommendations made by a legislative audit cannot be ignored and the committee must act on them. However his office still has a conflict of interest as stated by the court and special prosecutor Tabor's job was completed. He added that the county's house counsel, Mike Rainwater, also would have a conflict due to pending litigation so that leaves no one for the county to use as counsel. Foster goes on to say after speaking with the County Judge they have come up with an alternative, Foster recommended the committee use local attorney Jim Lane.
Attorney Jim Lane then introduced himself to the committee and gave his opinion on how the investigation should proceed. Lane said the audit contains 8 very specific recommendations that must be acted on and the best way to proceed is to hire a retired legislative auditor or somebody how has worked with a state audit before to compile the data. This person would break down all the questionable purchases into who owes what so that he could better advise the committee on the how to seek reimbursement. The committee voted unanimously to use attorney Lane.
The money to hire Lane will come out of the County Judge's budget under an administrative account. This raised the question of could the county add these fees to the money owed by the abusers of the credit cards? Foster say theoretically it's possible but Lane added since their action will be in civil court it could only be done if a Judge orders it so, but how it would be split up between the parties would be an issue. So the bottom line would be it looks like we the taxpayers are going to foot this bill as well.
What about the other years where misspending occurred was addressed too by Lane who said the committee would have to decide at some point if they wanted to go down that road. He said that an audit of previous years to uncover misspending would cost anywhere from 13,000 to 40,000 or more and it might not be cost effective.
So the bottom line is not only are no criminal charges are being looked at in any of this we the tax payers are going to be out more money to pay for another attorney to take another 3-6 months before any recovery is sought. And if we want to know how much we are really owed by the 4 horsemen, Montgomery, Pike, Wallace, and Wise, we are going to have to spend more money.
Isn't our government grand? Where else can a person misspend thousands of dollars, get caught, and still keep their job. What a wonderful message this all sends, as long as you are well connected you can get away with anything. I say enough is enough, let's end this cycle of protecting the good ol' boy politician and those loyal underlings who abuse their positions. I have updated the election page at my site to include contact information for our local government personnel. If you are so motivated call them and complain, tell them that enough is enough, we demand accountability in government. If they won’t listen then show them at the polls how serious we are about this effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment