A profound lack of administrative oversight in the administration the people's power and resources in the APS, allowed a vendor to routinely charge taxpayers $365 for $16 worth of parts and an hour worth of labor.
So far, APS Supt Winston Brooks and Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz are all about celebrating the employee who exposed the ripoff. They point to the money being saved to draw attention from the money being wasted.
There is no reason to believe that this particular scam is an isolated incident.
It is bone crushingly naive to believe APS is are spending a billion dollars a year and that, there aren't many, many more situations as bad or worse than this one.
There has never been an audit of the administration of the APS that did not find problems with (the abject lack of competent) oversight in the administration of the APS.
There is a reason the leadership of the APS stands foursquare against an independent impartial audit of administrative and executive standards and accountability.
Those wondering
- who the vendor is,
- who signed off on the contract, and
- whether this same vendor may be ripping off taxpayers somewhere else,
Therein lies the rub; APS is not transparent enough with respect to this incident or any other incidents, to enable taxpayers to watch over resources belonging fundamentally to them.
I point to Walz as a co-conspirator in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS for a number of reasons.But he and the Journal are by no means alone in the establishment media's tacit approval of the lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS.
KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV are every bit as remiss as the Journal in their investigation and report on the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, and for exactly the same reasons; personal and professional relationships taking precedence over their duty to the people and an informed electorate.
photos Mark Bralley
3 comments:
Everyone seems to know who this vendor is...why can't you guys just say it?
Why won't the Journal and TV investigative reporters find out who, and how, and why?
Because a thread will be established that they don't want to pull on.
APS has reasons to keep the name of the vendor to themselves as much as possible.
Think of years ago when Monica Armenta's mom was selling crappy useless data phones to APS. Was anyone disciplined there? and the product had to be replaced about 2-3 years later.
And the vendors and APS has a squirrely history of non-payment...being ripped off by APS, some get vendor approval, some don't... many have to "suck up" to get on board or offer some other extra feature (bribe?).
Thus APS and vendors ofyen are n an uneasy "truce" situation all around.
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