WASTE WITHOUT END
Have you ever sampled an $85 Kobe steak while sipping a glass of Rijoa Crianza at Bobby Flay's Steakhouse before a concert in Atlantic City?
Have you ever spent a night in Chicago's $530-per-night Hilton Garden Inn?
Have you ever attended an office holiday party featuring Filet Mignon, Veal Marsala and Rock Lobster Tails and about $40 worth of drinks per person at the exclusive Echo Lakes Country Club?
Were you in Arizona at the University of Phoenix Stadium, watching as the New York Giants upset the then-undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl?
Chances are you have not, but probably have paid for someone else to have enjoyed the pleasure.
They are just some examples uncovered recently showing how the state's independent authorities spend your tax dollars. These examples and others clearly reveal that New Jersey's governmental oversight is a woefully inadequate. The state's structure of oversight agencies is too diluted to get public employees to spend taxpayer dollars as prudently as they would their own.
As The Press of Atlantic City editorialized:
For example, why can't the (Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority's) board of directors have a sandwich or sub tray at its meetings, instead of beef tenderloin, crab cakes, pork loin, strip steak and shrimp?
Sounds delicious. But again, it reflects an attitude of indifference and even arrogance toward the people who are actually paying for this.
New Jersey has a state comptroller, a state auditor, an inspector general and a State Commission of Investigation - all of whom work independently and diligently to uncover and prevent governmental waste.
But their excellent report has been ignored by Governor Corzine and Democrats in the Legislature who seem more concerned with preserving their system that rewards political supporters than ending wasteful government spending that steals money directly from New Jersey's hard-working families.
That is why Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce, flanked by Assemblymen Dave Rible and Vince Polistina, announced last month plans to introduce legislation aimed at replacing duplicative investigatory and auditing agencies with one super-charged auditing office, spearheaded by an independent elected Auditor General.
"An elected Auditor General will have the power to do more than issue reports," DeCroce said. "He or she will hold people accountable."
The Office of Auditor General, which would have prosecutorial authority to recoup misspent tax dollars and punish those responsible, would need to be created via constitutional amendment. Republican legislators want the proposal on the November 2010 ballot. If voters approve, the first nonpartisan auditor general would be elected in November 2011 - halfway through the next gubernatorial term.
The auditor general would oversee the state's auditing oversight functions in a more coordinated effective effort than our current scattershot approach.
The auditor general would have the power to end wasteful government spending unlike existing practice which has been a broken record in which a state auditing agency exposes wrongdoing but is simply ignored by the culprits and irresponsible elected officials.
Consider this endorsement from a Home News Tribune/Courier-News editorial:
New Jersey's existing government oversight is mostly laughable, compromised as it often is by conflicts of interest. Gov. Jon Corzine professed to wanting an elected state comptroller during his first gubernatorial campaign, but settled for an appointed version after lawmakers balked, automatically weakening the comptroller's impact. The state Attorney General's office has been widely criticized for failing to root out more of New Jersey's political corruption, yet we shouldn't be surprised; the attorney general is appointed by the governor.
Too often we hear spending and other governmental abuses in New Jersey dismissed as 'just the way things get done.' It's time to find other, more ethical ways, and the Republicans' oversight consolidation plan certainly deserves consideration to assist that evolution.
Still not convinced? See for yourself at www.njassemblyrepublicans.com.
Click on A.C. Convention and Visitors Authority or N.J. Redevelopment Authority, to see some examples of how certain public agencies spend your money.
Or, click on "History of Waste," "Audits ignored," "Dept. of Education," or "Dept. of Corrections" to see past efforts by Assembly Republicans to uncover wasteful, fraudulent and abusive spending by government in New Jersey, as well as a history of audits by different governmental agencies and how they went ignored by Corzine, his predecessors and the Democrats who have controlled the Legislature.