Accountability In Politics

As many are already aware our county is slated to have one additional Judge / Court appointed by the Governor in 2006. The need for this additional court was sold to the citizens of Monroe County as a virtual necessity with a price tag of around $400,000 a year. The decision to move forward with the request was based on the cost estimate provided by the Judges to the County Council. As the reality of the new Court draws near the actual anticipated cost of the new Court has been elevated to a whopping $1.7 million, four times the original estimate. When questioned about the difference between the original estimate and the real cost few acceptable responses were offered. The reality is citizens and County officials were sold the new court with a seriously underestimated budget and furthermore had the real cost of the new courts been used it is highly unlikely we would be anticipating a new court anytime soon.

It has been suggested the County Council failed to probe the Judges proposal to discover that it only included the cost of the Court and failed to recognize all of the additional support staff and expenses that would be required should the proposal be implemented. The additional costs are to include staff for the County Clerk, Prosecutor, Public Defender, Probation Department and or Sheriff’s Department. That oversight by itself is unacceptable but what is even more discouraging is now the current estimated cost for just the Court’s portion of the budget is $719,000 almost double what was originally proposed. Why do you ask, it appears they failed to properly anticipate the cost of facilities to house the court plus some other associated costs they conveniently overlooked in the original proposal?

What I fail to understand is why we elect individuals to represent us and then fail to hold them accountable for their incompetence. In the private sector businesses are held accountable by consumers through a variety of outlets the least of which is the conscious choice of deciding to do business with any given firm at any given time. If we are cheated or treated badly we tend to decide if the product or service is worth the additional cost and make our purchases accordingly. However, in Government we tend to accept being treated poorly simply because the cost of their oversight is being spread over a larger group. If a local car repair facility provided an estimate for repairing your vehicle of $400 and when you went to pick up your car the actual cost was closer to $719 my guess is the average person would be outraged. Why would someone be upset at the car repair shop when your elected officials do this on a daily basis? The only logical answer is with the car repair the additional cost will be borne solely by you? Should we be any less outraged when our new Court’s estimated cost escalated from $400,000 to $719,000 than we are about a car repair being $719 rather than $400, after all its just a matter of moving the decimal point around?

Elections are unfortunately more about personality than they are about capability and until that changes we will always be faced with near voluntary governance and little or no accountability. People should be outraged when elected officials fail to perform their duties and recognize their responsibility to the citizens they represent. When elected officials reward departmental oversight with the allocation of additional funding beyond the original cost estimate or budget they’re simply perpetuating a system of offering incentives for negative behavior and poor performance. Currently departments are rewarded for submitting false or poorly prepared budgets. The motivation is oversell the concept and undersell the price with the reward being additional funding when needed. In our current dilemma our Council was faced with funding an additional court at a cost that was up to four times higher than the original estimate. Somehow our elected officials feel compelled to make up for this incompetence by throwing additional funding at their feet. Occasionally it would do the system good to just say, we’re sorry but you’ll just have to figure out how to run your department with the funds that you requested, nothing more and nothing less. You told us you need $400,000 and that’s how much you get. We all bear the cost of these oversights and it’s just a matter of moving the decimal point to figure out how much it costs each of us individually.