Taxpayers paid more than $73K for the "handcuffs, body armor, print cartridges, digital recorders, smartphones and dozens of cell phones." that former sheriff Greg Solano sold on eBay, link.
Solano stole from the people because he could not summon enough moral courage to overcome the temptation to which he was exposed. That temptation was enormous according to Terrell's report.
Imagine if there were "casino security" on the evidence, drugs,
and cash that were instead, just lying around free for the taking.
Would Greg Solano have stolen public resources if getting caught
was a virtual certainty?
The fundamental failure here was not Solano's personal
weakness, it is the failure of the government to provide for
human weakness. The first line of defense appears to be
nothing more than hope that politicians and public servants
will be strong.
If an audit like the one State Auditor Hector Balderas just had
done on Solano's Office, was done every year in every office
and agency, auditors would find little to complain about. There
would be few findings.
It is only because there aren't annual audits, that people get
lazy and careless about protecting public power and resources.
Auditors would not find resources being stolen, because they
wouldn't find resources that could be stolen. They wouldn't find
power being abused because they wouldn't find power that
could be abused without consequence.
If government is of and by the people, then any "governmental"
failure is the people's failure. If there is a lack of real oversight
in government, it isn't because "government" doesn't insist
upon it, it is because the people have not insisted upon it.
The people are responsible for tempting politicians and public
servants beyond their limits by making public corruption and
incompetence so damned easy to get away with.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
Taxpayers are out more than $73K, why?
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2 comments:
I thought there were requirements to have annual audits for all agencies. However, there are no consequences if they don't, and the State Auditor's budget keeps getting cut, so they don't have the staff to enforce it.
Don't they keep finding bad things in APS's audits, but nothing changes?
There are financial audits every year but not audits of controls, standards and accountability.
I agree, my impression is that APS audits have pointed to a number of issues that don't seem to get fixed.
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