tejek,
re:Stupid is as stupid does
I do recall the State actively destroying perfectly good tax paying industries in favor of "green" high tech industries. Namely forest and fish products. My entire family (on dad's side) living in Astoria had their fishing industry destroyed by regulations in the 80's. They all took jobs in Alaska as the fishing industry in Oregon was taken apart.
The sad part is all those Oregon high tech workers buy houses made out of wood grown and sawn in Canada now. They get their seafood from out of State and now they don't have jobs and are moving away.
Then there's this Lotto thing:
sos.state.or.us
SALEM-Secretary of State Bill Bradbury today released an audit critical of the administrative expenses of the Oregon State Lottery. The audit identifies more than $750,000 in questionable administrative expenses that the lottery made during 2001.
"Every dollar that the lottery spends on administrative expenses costs public schools in Oregon 63 cents, costs economic development programs 21 cents, costs State Parks and salmon recovery programs 15 cents and costs gambling treatment programs a penny," Bradbury said. "I think the people have a right to decide whether they would rather have first class travel and catered lunches for lottery employees or money for schools and economic development and parks and salmon."
The lottery is not covered by the same spending rules that apply to the rest of state government and spends public money in ways that are not allowed elsewhere. "The practices that are identified in this audit are lottery-specific and there are rules in the rest of state government that prohibit many of these practices," Bradbury said.
Among the questionable expenses cited in the audit:
Spending $38,000 on an annual employee meeting, including $30,000 for two speakers and more than $1000 for prizes, candy and decorations;
Regularly purchasing snacks and meals for employees that rules usually prohibit in other agencies;
Spending two and a half times the state employee average on training, some of which is of questionable value like a "Fundamentals of Acting" class and an "Introduction to Rock Music" class;
Regularly sending four or more employees to the same out of state meeting when other agencies have rules that limit the number of employees attending the same out of state meeting;
Spending nearly $19,000 extra dollars last year for two employees to travel first class, when employees in other agencies, disabled or not, travel coach.
Staying in hotels that are more expensive than other state employees could. On one trip to Boca Raton, Florida, the extra costs of the more expensive food and lodging for the lottery employees was nearly $1,700.
Lottery policy authorizes awards and gifts of up to $1,200 per employee per year, but does not track all of those expenses. In addition, it rewards employees simply for length of service rather than performance, which is prohibited in the rest of state government. Those rewards include things like Waterford vases and watches;
Lottery counts any portion of a day as a full day's work for its management employees. Employees in other agencies have to take leave for any time that they are away from work. An employee gets paid for a full day without taking sick leave if that employee shows up at all.
"The rest of state government and Oregon families have responded to the economic downturn by tightening our belts and squeezing value out of every dollar that we spend," said Bradbury. "The Oregon Lottery needs to treat its administrative expenses as if it is the people's money, not their money. They need to keep in mind that every catered lunch is costing Oregon's schools money."
|
