A Record Of Massive Waste And No Accountability
For the first time in recent memory the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), in concert with county staff, is looking at how to be reasonable about the money they spend on capital projects. This is historic. Never before has the majority of the BOCC or county staff concerned themselves with how much they spent on capital projects. In support of that statement a list of the unnecessary and excessive would be instructive, but would take up the entire article. Let us say it begins with CMS and includes courthouses, art percentages, Dr. Dan Morrill’s private slush fund, parks, libraries, the Department of Social Services and jails. You will notice it includes everything the BOCC is involved with.
Start with Dr. Morrill’s private slush fund. The Doctor of History (I suppose) found it sad that old buildings in Mecklenburg County were left to the market. Often they would be torn down and replaced with something new, or whatever else happens to old buildings. He went to the BOCC, asked for and received a fund of $7 million to use to do something about this issue. He complained it wasn’t enough and got another $5 million or so. What a deal. He gets to use your money for his personal project. The question is: when does the BOCC say stop. We want our money back. Our money – the taxpayer’s money. Your money went to his private projects. This is the way the BOCC has been, although usually not so obvious. In other cases, the recipients usually have to bid or quote on things and thus are hidden from a direct line of connection. But they are always the same people, so the connection is there.
Take Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for the next example. Members of the Chamber of Commerce support bonds that will pay for projects they get to bid on. As it is mostly the same people bidding on and winning the contracts of government (taxpayer) largess, kindly distributed by county staff at the behest of the compliant BOCC, everyone gets to know each other very well. It has been a closed group of businesses feeding at the trough of government payments. And don’t forget the position of the Chamber of Commerce in this cycle. While ostensibly a group of business leaders supporting business in the metropolitan Charlotte area, there is a group within, a coterie one might describe them as, whose goal is to place themselves in positions to reap the rewards of their relationship with those in government who dole out the monetary plums. We’re talking hundreds of millions every year. A nice business if you’re well connected enough.
The best example of good connection would be Bovis Lend Lease. They oversee the schools building programs. Taking 6% off the top (the last time I actually knew the number) they do well. Six percent is about 2 percent higher than comparable contracts. Tell me if they’re well connected. Or take the courthouse. Originally planned at around $90 million, retired (fortunately) Commissioner Parks Helms thought $150 million would be a better number to spend. And so it was spent.
Then there are the libraries. Not so long ago libraries might be in a strip mall, renting space, or as a single building in a low rent space. Not now. They are ostentatious monuments to the ability of bureaucrats to spend your money. Nice buildings, lots of pretty adornments which are unnecessary to borrowing books or using computers, but certainly improve the bottom line of the construction companies and reduce the bottom line of the taxpayers. Thank the BOCC for that one.
Take land the county owns, and not just for Parks and Recreation. About 10 years ago there was a bond on the ballot for the purchase of land. In 1999 the BOCC recommended a bond vote of $220 million to purchase land in Mecklenburg County for the future use of county staff. In was an incredible amount. It included every item on every wish list of every manager working for Mecklenburg County. And since then there has been more.
The record of the BOCC is one of excessive waste. They act as if they work for the county staff and their job is to grant every wish staff has. Thus we see County Manager Harry Jones paying off former DSS Director Jake Jacobsen with taxpayer money, approved by the BOCC. We see Jones getting raises during a depression. We see Jones attacking private individuals who dare to question policy – and the BOCC does nothing.
So now we are told the BOCC is going to revisit how they make decisions about capital expenditures. Great. But it’s not because of some new dose of foresight. It’s simply because they have wasted so much of the taxpayer’s money in the past, they’ve run out of easy money. They have to revisit because what they’ve been doing has almost bankrupted the county. The lenders said slow down and the taxpayers are finally saying stop. And it is thus our elected leaders lead. They’re only slowing down because they have to, certainly not because they want to.
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